Yeah, there’s certainly a very different dynamic from starting cuttings inside VS outside. I’m about ready to give up on inside cuttings - when plants grow, they do great but for some reason it’s always the cuttings that I have the fewest of that get destroyed by fungus / fungus gnats.
Please post photos of your fruit - and plants, if you have them! I’m in 7B and Grenada does very well here. I have kept it pruned as an open bush. I also have a Wonderful, which grows more upright . . . and last year all the fruit was immature and eventually cracked before turning red.
Our winter has been exceptionally cold - with more snow than we can remember. I’m hoping that it hasn’t harmed the trees . . . How are yours doing?
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Ison has a Nikitsky Ranni
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Thank you for mentioning this!
I found one at Edible Landscaping. Seems as though a few places got them since I wrote that post.
Our temps dropped to 5 one night. I wasnt prepared to protect it so i dug it up real quick and put in the garage. Ill probably leave it potted for life and maybe try again with another one. Dang winter.
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Oh no! Mine is very established . . . I didn’t realize how long it’s been out there. Maybe 12 years? And I was thinking only 6 or 7, tops. Time flies.
We had temps down to 11 - and all seem ok. I think it depends on how long it stays that cold. I’m with you, tho . . . . DANG WINTER!
Late frosts are worst than actual cold in zone 7a and zone 7b for me so far. and I read about in 8b Georgia a cold hardy pomegranate that was tree like died because of late frost.
For me it varies, some years the buds swelled a bit then fried and I mark that in the last frost column. Other years the buds have not swelled at all but still its all dead. That I mark due to winter cold.
This winter is looking like its not going to be good, I noticed my rosemary plant is suffering. If it suffers the figs and poms die back.
@scottfsmith do you grow any Pom that you think is worth the trouble of growing/protecting outdoors?
I am only growing in-ground unprotected poms, and so far nothing is worth growing as I have not gotten any appreciable quantity of fruit. I have been trying for ten years now so my hopes are dimming. Protected or potted is another matter, that should work on many varieties.
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If I forget about fruit and grow poms as a landscape plant/novelty piece, do you think it’ll work? Or does it die back and then struggle to grow the next year?
Once they get established they generally come back after dieback. This is assuming its a cold-hardy pom, all the soft-seeded ones eventually faded for me. It also depends on the weather, if you get too many years in a row of dieback even a really hardy one may die. I had a big Kazake which did not make it through the most recent two years in a row of dieback. All the other well-established ones made it though. While Kazake is hardy it is prone to early bud swell and overall its not the best for my climate. Kaj acik anor and the Russian Hardy of EL have proved the most durable for me.
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I have lost 4 or 5 very young pomegranates over the years. I think they were too young to have been planted in the ground, and didn’t survive the winter. Perhaps the drainage wasn’t the best, either. I’ve since chosen another area in my yard, to plant poms. It’s more out in the open - so I feared the cold winds. But, they seem to do much better here.
When they were protected by the house or garage - they didn’t make it. ? So I had to go with ‘bad drainage’ and their young age - as the major culprits.
And I’ve only had one come back after dying down to the ground. It’s now about 3’ tall - multi trunked. I kept a close eye on it this winter. Mulched well. I’m going to wait till we are closer to spring, to prune it.
I am building up the areas where I am putting in my new pomegranates. Making sure the drainage is good - plant them high and mulch. And hope for the best.
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My garage stays around 50 degrees no matter how cold it gets. Ill just stick to Poms in a pot and move them in and out. Less stressful that way. I already keep plumeria and bananas in there so a few more plants wont be an issue
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It’s surprising how different a little difference in the climate can be, how much difference the soil can be. Like dry cold soil is worst than wet cold soil to some degree because wet soil take longer to freeze. Also it’s bad to plant a pomegranate where it gets hit by the earliest morning sun then he ground can dehydrate the tree from the roots. Protecting any tree in a climate like were I live can be a disadvantage some of the time bringing them out of dormancy earlier because enough warmer days to a plant with protection can bring them out of dormancy sooner VS no protection because protection means even warmer on the warmer days.
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Yes your climate is just enough colder than mine for the cold it’s self to be a big problem some years. The worst we get is 7a like weather here which is rare, 6b and colder is when the real cold it’s self can be a problem so I am not in the best location to test for cold hardiness.
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Walls do not create a real micro climate unless you have them on more than one side, preferably on at least 3 sides. Also how close did you put them to the walls because too close and the wall will keep the ground were the roots are frozen much longer if it blocks the sun most of the day, unlike a tower of tires which because of the block color and protection from 360 degrees warms up the ground.
I didn’t know that about walls keeping the ground frozen. ? But, it wasn’t right up against the wall. The wall faced south . . . and the tree was planted about 15’ from the wall. I thought I was doing it a favor! . . . to shield it from the north! 
Who knows why we lost that one. Like I said - we lost several before finally, one year, we had 2 that did very well out in front of our house . . . with direct ‘access’ to the north! I had been ‘trying’ for about 10 years . . . and just wouldn’t give up, because I’d seen a few nice pomegranate trees in people’s yards.
I just wish I’d paid more attention to keeping a log - to record what varieties I was planting. Back in the mid-80s, when I started buying pomegranate plants - there just weren’t many available. ‘Wonderful’ was about IT, for a time. And I know I’d planted 3 or 4 of those, only to lose them. Then I tried another, I recall . . . that had the word ‘Angel’ in the name. And then, finally ‘Grenada’.
Also . . . It’s easy to forget what it was like, ordering things before there was internet! Home gardeners were dependent upon the seed and plant catalogues’ hype. I probably ordered some from Michigan Bulb and other mass-marketed nurseries. (The ones that tell you that the plants will grow in any zone, any soil, and produce in 3 weeks!) I really don’t remember where I got them. But, they were small and I didn’t know to keep them in a pot for a year or two more. 'Wasted a lot of bucks on plants like that - with bad planting advice to go along with them.
Now there is so much information . . . and so many sources for different plants. Good zone recommendations, too. It’s a different world out there, now! And I am glad that I kept trying - it finally paid off.
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15 feet away is far enough. Yet cold air can come from North east and north west still cold, and like I said only stops the wind from 1 direction. The darker the wall the better too.
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I’ve tried growing about a dozen pomegranate varieties in ground without protection here in Z7b central North Carolina. Just like Scott, my hopes are dimming, but my most resilient varieties are also Russian from Edible Landscaping (a.k.a. Salavatski) and Kaj-acik-anor. I’ve only ever had a couple of fruits that were pretty disappointing compared to what you can get at the grocery store. Pomegranates seem to handle our lowest temps pretty well, but then they break dormancy as soon as it warms up and invariably get hammered hard by any late frosts that come along. Pots or protection are probably the only way to get a consistent crop anywhere with frequent late frosts.
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