15 year old Giboshi I prune to about 8 feet every winter.
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That is really beautiful.
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Agreed. My 3 yr old Giboshi seems to want to grow very upright. Did you do anything special to create that shape? It looks like a peach tree.
Yes, I prune it much like a peach tree. The bearing area is slowly getting higher and higher. I may have to make some strong heading cuts to bring the bearing area lower; just not sure if they’ll heal well as persimmon heals so slowly.
I should prune it in summer like Scott does but I just can’t see the branch structure through all the leaves in summer.
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Persimmon wood is so brittle, I have had big limbs just snap off taking some of the trunk with it. Its impressive you can prune it open center.
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I had a Yates with a 5 inch diameter main trunk and a 2 inch side trunk break off taking the main trunk section and peeling back down the remaining trunk splitting the tree almost in half. Is there a difference between American and Asian wood?
Golf “woods” used to be made of American persimmon for its hardness and density.
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Persimmon sometimes seem happy to make trunks/branches with very narrow crotch angles that can lead to bark inclusion and eventual splitting… so that’s something to watch for. Here is a smaller tree that I was slow getting to.
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I think the heartwood is very hard and dense. I’m not so sure about the sapwood.
Also (something I learned trying to make a bow), hardness is about resistance to compression. Flexibility is about tolerance for bending without cracking or splitting. Those are different. Hardness is a quality you’d want in the back of the bow near the handle. Flexibility is a quality you’d want in the wings. For a self-bow (one piece of wood) the challenge is to find a wood that provides both. Or to craft a shape that creates stiffness or flexibility in different parts of the bow as needed. For a composite bow, the art / science is to combine materials achieving these different goals. For example, horse archers of the Eurasian steppe used horn (most often water buffalo) for the stiff section and wood (such as mulberry) for the flexible, with sinew from legs and loins and glue from hooves and hide to hold it together.
I’m sure this is TMI but I just learned all this stuff and I’m excited about it. 
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I decided on Imoto Fuyu and Izu.
With spring in the air here in South Jersey this week I couldn’t help myself and bought a few fruit trees to add to my suburban backyard landscape. Besides the persimmons I now have a Methley plum, Shinseiki Asian pear, Kieffer pear, Ayers pear, Santa Rosa plum and a Red Haven peach. Counting two fig trees I got last year I have a total of ten fruit tree’s.
Thanks for the follow up. Now help us learn from your experience:
- Izu. This was a release from the Japanese PCNA breeding program. It gets great reviews as a fruit but also gets some complaints as a tree for low vigor. I bought one myself, which has not yet arrived, to test it. I plan to grow it in a pot to avoid risk of cold damage.
Anyway, we’d all love to know how it performs for you.
- Imoto Fuyu. This is an older name that I don’t know much about. I try to keep good notes on whatever I read, but I have nothing on this one except a big blank space. My notes suggest that it ripens mid-season and make be cold hardy only to +5 F, but I’d take all that with a grain of salt.
Do you know more that we should know now? In any case, again we’d all love to know how it performs for you.
Thanks. And welcome to the community!
I don’t know much about Persimmon trees othen than what I have read on the internet. I have zero experience with them.
The Imoto Is thought to be a sport of the Fuyu Jiro originating from a tree of the late valley farmer Mr. Mike Imoto of Lindsey California. The fruit is a bit larger than the Jiro and comes off 7 to 10 days earlier. The attributes of the Imoto are similar to the Jiro. It can be eaten firm, and if planted alone away from other varieties of persimmons it will be seedless.
Izu, Often referred to as a dwarf because of its heavy production which results in a slower growing tree. Dwarf tree (8-10′) that bears excellent, medium-sized non-astringent fruit. It has good disease resistance and ripens early in September. Good commercial cultivar. Hardy to 0 degrees F. New trees can produce fruit in 2-3 years
I watched a YouTube video from edible landscaping and the guy described Izu as being the persimmon that if someone were to eat a persimmon for the 1st time this is the one to try…
With that being said my decision was based on the little knowledge I’ve learned from what I have read one the internet, YouTube video’s and this forum alone with price and availability.
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Alex1 – Great, thanks. You’ve done more due diligence than most new growers, certainly more than I did when I started out. Good luck. And please, let us know how they work out for you. We can compare notes on Izu.
That…is a work of art! 
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There’s a semi pro guy in Florida who is currently hand making persimmon woods. Apparently they are fairly popular and don’t lose much oomph versus modern tech. I think I might have an old one in the spare club bag.
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I planted a bare root Imoto Fuyu tree while dormant in March of this year. It took a while to wake up but when it did it took off and was growing nicely. Unfortunately it looks like I lost it to heat and drought while away on vacation this summer. I would like to replace it. I’m assuming a live tree with leaves will come in the mail. Is now end of September a good time to plant in South Jersey zone 7a?
I’d wait until spring. A non-astringent persimmon will be sensitive to winter cold. Z7A is an area of borderline hardiness at best. A couple of nights below 0 F and most varieties will be dead; a couple of nights below -5 F and pretty much all NA varieties will be dead. Given that you’re pushing, I’d give the new tree the best possible chance and not plant it just before winter.
Did you plant Izu too?
@Alex1 … l am down in southern TN… zone 7b… and i have a IKKJiro in year 2 now and a Cardinal in its first seaaon.
I have many Americans and Hybrids too.
When I plant a new fruit tree… i first remove the sod layer in about a 4ft circle. Plant the tree in the middle of that. I mix some compost in my planting hole… I always have several rocks to remove and I add compost to offset that… trading compost for rocks is a good move your tree will appreciate.
Once planted… i add about half a wheelbarrow of compost on top and spread it around that 4 ft circle… then I add a full wheelbarrow of wood chips on top and spread it around that 4 ft circle.
We had a nasty drought this year with very high temps for most of that. When you set them up like that… they can easily go 3 or 4 weeks or more… without rain or watering.
Good luck on your next one !
TNHunter
Yes the IZU is doing fine. It’s in an area that doesn’t get much afternoon sun. Basically full sun from sunrise until around 1:30 pm. Its also on flat ground where the imoto was in a mounded bed and full sun the entire day.
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