I am zone 5b at the norther edge of the native range of persimmon in Illinois. Never seen a wild one in 74 years. They do exist or did. I have Meader that was selected for cold hardiness.I have an adult grandson in 3b Mn wanting to grow persimmons. So this topic is of interest to me.
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i have a seedling that so far has survived at least -25f here for 2 winters. just put in a tin cup and another supposedly cold hardy one from blue hill in apr. they are leafing out now. ill post on here how they do.
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I have a Prok and Yates which are doing well. The Meader is struggling and the 100-46 hasn’t leafed out at all yet. I’m afraid it may have perished, but I will give it more time. I have a 100-46 out front which is doing quite well…Location, location, location!
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Where did you plant your Prok and Yates within your landscape? I’m in zone 5b and lost a two year Nakita’s Gift with heavy winter protection after a harsh winter.
Prok and Yates are purely American Persimmons, whereas the Nikita’s Gift in a hybrid and would be marginal and would be doomed to fail. I’ve been tempted to try, but even being in zone 5A, and going through the winter we just had, it would not be advisible. Mine are planted in what I call the stump garden. I had had a huge, ancient red maple (6’ diameter) that perished, so I encircled the area plus quite a bit, and planted them at either extreme: one on the south end and one on the north end.
They are at the back part of the property. There is a stockade fence surrounding the entire back and protects this area on the west. I have an inground pool to the east, which might help, too. Within the bed, which I’ve bordered with hosta as a way to keep grass out, I have about five bush cherries (Jan and Joel) and I’ve actually put in peppermint, chamomile and lemonbalm to battle it out. I also have a number of rhubarb, because, why not?! There had been two dwarf mulberries that were not Gerardi. I have since cut them down and covered the remains with black plastic because they were out of control and every year I’d have tons to prune, they were running, and the fruit is tiny. (I was sent the wrong plants: I’d ordered Gerardi and only got one out of four.) I’ve since been attempting to propagate the one Gerardi, and if it takes, I’d like to maybe put one of those in the space.
I think your problem is that you are trying to push the zone ability too far. I’ve noticed that many catalogs use a “wishful thinking” zone range. The American Prok and Yates are going to work here and their fruit size is not tiny like some. They also don’t need to be clipped from the tree which in my mind is a bonus!
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Jerry Lehman, whose home & orchard were located in Vigo Co. IN, just outside of Terre Haute - considered 6a, or possibly 6b, consistently had winter damage to Nikita’s Gift, whereas Rosseyanka was always undamaged. I suspect that Nikita’s Gift would be ‘iffy’, at best in a zone 5 setting or colder.
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You might try the hybrid sosnovskaya. I got scion from Cliff England last year. October drop so might be iffy in your area. Mine has a few blooms. Might get to taste it this year.
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I am not a gardener. Can’t even keep a houseplant alive. But when the last of my ancient apple trees died I cut them down and planted some new fruit trees. I’m in zone 5a about 30 miles west of Madison WI. Among the new trees are 14 persimmons. One grafted Full Draw and 10 seedlings from Blue Hill. The other 3 I got from a nursery in Indiana via Etsy, and I refer to those as “Hoosier” just to keep them straight. They were all 1’ to 2’ bare root and I put them in the ground around April 1, and they are all in 30” tree tubes with a welded wire cage.
Most started to leaf out around mid May and some of the early ones did get some frost damage but appear to have recovered.
The deer density here is what I would call “thick”, and my main objective is not so much early fruit but vertical growth and getting tasty young shoots above the browse line. I really don’t want to look out the window at tree tubes and wire cages forever.
For some reason most of the new growth is happening lower on the plants rather than from the tip as seen here.
Can someone here tell me is this normal?
Can I get more vertical growth by pruning the tops or removing the tubes?
My guess is that your trees had winter damage higher up where the trunk tappers to a smaller diameter that is prone to desiccation. The tree has picked a more promising bud to send its energy to. I’d let it do its thing, and prune as needed to keep the central leader.
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That makes sense. It got down around 20 degrees here at one point.
Thanks for your response.
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I’m solidly zone 4b (1 hour south of Minneapolis) and had planted Tin Cup and a few other Blue Hill seedlings last year. They grew great but didn’t harden off in the fall fast enough and died over the winter all the way down to the soil line. All 3 seedlings and whatever rootstock was on the Tin Cup resprouted but I don’t think Tin Cup is the ‘z4b’ persimmon for my space.
Good to hear everyone else’s experiences! I keep getting cold hardy seed mixes and trying again - or just keeping an eye on Buzz’s work until it’s released. Hah!
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thats not too promising to hear. im in the same z4b and i just planted tin cup and another from blue hill this spring. i have a seedling thats at 4ft. right now i was going to graft over to whichever of the other 2 survives. i also got seeds sprouting of tango and oranged that i got from oikios.
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Of my four unprotected Prairie series varieties, the three with good grafts are all doing well. I imagine Prairie Star (H-118) would be as well if the graft had been good, I’ll replace it with a like from OneGreenWorld.
In other news, at least one the root cuttings I took from Caramel cocktail (H-63A) before planting this year has sprouted as well
Timing wise for tracking sake, the rootstock inside of the protected fig pit leafed out by ~May-9 (I think it was May 1st but didn’t take photos until the 9th), the unprotected ones did not see that level until ~May-30.
Theory:
Consulting the soil temp data from the pit it seems to suggest a certain number of hours above 55-60F is required for awakening. Looking at the leaf out date and the data that seems to align.
If we consider Seattle’s growing degree days are ~2300 as a base line and they can ripen some varieties there, vs ours at ~2650 and extrapolating off that my working theory is the earliest Asians should be viable. I believe that to be Cardinal? Hoping someone has dates to support that or recommendations to try
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Google AI says the coldest temp in Minneapolis last winter was -21. The coldest in four years. Rochester is about 90 minutes southeast. It hit -22 there last winter. That ’s cold, but 4b lows range from -20 to -25.
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I just planted a few varieties with their graft unions 1" or lower below soil level. For at least one I just didn’t have a long enough of a scion to bury it too deeply. I have low expectations but I wanted to try nursery-bought grafted types first.
You (@Garyxian) are in the area so I’ll mention that Mills Fleet Farm sells a food grade 6 gallon bucket, even deeper and wider a thicker than a typical 5 gallon bucket. Hence I can grow out seedlings in buried portable contained units.
Maybe a second bucket to inverted over them in winter would help survival, but then you have to be aware that humidity causes rot, so then have openings cut in the inverted top bucket that are below the snow line when there is snow? (Google search for “mini-greenhouse using buckets” shows ideas using box-type plastic storage bins as greenhouses.)
Next project is to get seedlings, carry them through 2 winters to select for zone 4b hardiness, then graft over.