I have no experience with humidity, but rather too little moisture for a lot of things. Arid climate, zone 6a, about 4,500-5,000 ft elevation.
I am relatively new to growing pomegranates, but have 4 young (1ft tall) Salavaski poms in grow bags that I overwinter in an unheated shed. This spring I thought they were all dead. All but one were brittle and showed no life signs by June. I remembered them coming out of dormancy a bit late last spring, so I didn’t throw them out. Now in the beginning of August, the one that had a pliable branch is leafing out! I checked the others, and 2 of the 3 have little leaves growing from the base. 
I have always wanted to grow my own pomegranates, but these may not thrive until I have a greenhouse. At least they survived the last two winters, including several weeks of single digits.
Sorry Richard. I wasn’t ignoring you . . . I’ve just been ‘away’ for a bit.
I know. I know. But they are categorized as either “soft seeded” or “hard seeded”, after all. And not “hard arilled”. I’m not as perfectionistic about it all . . . I just want someone to understand what I’m referring to.
You say Toe-may-toe. Someone else says Toe-mah-toe. We both know they are the red things, from the garden that we slice and put on a sandwich. 
Mine are alive and look good but they’re telling me they want to be in ground and not in pots…
None of my soft seeded varieties made it 2 years. Winter killed always. I tried Angel red, Parfianka, Medovyi Vasha, Desertnyi, even Sumbar passed away.
I have Azadi to see if it will evade the rot, but I will baby the plant until it gets a bit larger.
Whereas Suhr Anor fruited well and survived, but the rot kept taking the fruit…
Here are some pomegranates in western Oregon.
I read that you hand pollinate. I was under the impression that pomegranates have so called perfect flowers (male and female parts in the same bloom). So you’ve found that hand pollinating helps increase production for you? How significant of a difference does it make?
I also noticed in your pics that your trees are heavily pruned. Do you do much of that during the summer?
Pomegranates have both perfect and functionally male flowers with reduced ovaries. If your tree produces only a few perfect flowers and many male flowers, the odds for a perfect flower to be visited by a pollinator are smaller. In that case, hand-pollination of the perfect flowers could help with fruit set.
Thank you for that explanation. Do you know if the amount of each type of flower varies from year to year? I was aware that pomegranates produce male flowers as well, but had no clue that the tree could produce disproportionally more male blooms than perfect.
One of my trees last year made many nice fruits, whereas this year it only set 2 fruits. My initial thought was the tree is still young (only 5 years old), but perhaps that isn’t the reason.
Yes, it’s supposed to vary from year-to-year and also between varieties. I don’t know if anyone has figured out what causes the variation or which varieties produce more perfect flowers though.
Thanks for the info. What varieties are you growing. I see you are also zone 9, though my version of zone 9 is far more extreme than Napa.
@manfromyard I feel your pain.
I truly am hesitant to mention any good news about my fruit this year.
KnockOnWood!!! But so far almost all of the pomegranates are ‘almost’ fungus-free. A few black dots here and there . . . but we only have about a month and a half ? to go before they begin to ripen. Maybe most will make it to the finish line unscathed.
Looks like a bunch of rain is headed our way . . . and that’s not good news.
@jsteph00921 (Sorry, I just realized it was you that asked the pruning question - and not @LornaB) I got my posters mixed up!
I do heavily prune whenever I have the time. I try to do it in late winter, but always end up having to do more in the spring . . . and throughout the season as well. I do this to open up the tree to allow sunlight and airflow. At least that’s my thinking.
I get rid of most of the suckers that grow like weeds . . . and crowd the tree. They will bear fruit, eventually . . . but meanwhile they ‘suck’ the tree of nutrients. Another reason I prune heavily is that I want to be able to reach the fruit without a trapeze! LOL And these trees are always very busy, like pears, reaching for the sky!
It’s hard to stay ahead of them.
@GrapeNut and @jsteph00921
I stopped driving myself nuts with the ‘why’ about all the fruit. Especially the poms . . . because, quite frankly . . . no one seems to have all the right answers. I just know that I was getting a lot of blossoms - and few fruit. So . . . I thought, “What the heck. Maybe I’ll give the bees a hand and see if that improves things.” I’ll never be sure that that was the magic solution . . . but this year’s fruit set could very well be attributed to the hand-pollinating.
One little thing crossed my mind. My husband did most of the spraying this year. I mixed the fungicides - and I think I miscalculated (me and my sorry math skills again) and put in a lot more Indar than I was supposed to, one time. I remember even telling him to not bother with the pomegranates, because their problem is not supposed to respond to the chemicals we were using. He ignored the advice. Maybe a good thing?
Could it have been the ‘super-Indar’ application that created such clean fruit this year? Or the very very small population of Japanese Beetles? Who knows.
Here’s a photo of some of my future crop 
Hang in there, poms!
A perfect one! “Wonderful”
Granada
One lonely Hotuni Zigar. I think I mistook it for a Nikitski Ranni in another post.
A Granada I started from a cutting. I expect I’ll have some sunburn damage. (Went a little too postal on the pruning!
)
I have Parfianka, Gissarskii Rozovyi, and a tree I propagated from an unlabled tree in the USDA collection. They are all fairly young, so this year is the first year of production for me.
I see (in most cases) one larger female flower with two male flowers flanking it. I know, for sure, that this is the case with Granada. Now, I’m not sure if the same is true for the other varieties.? I’ll have to pay more attention next spring.) I get a LOT of male (trumpet shaped smaller flowers) - and most drop.
The hand-pollinating appears to have helped enormously on some varieties - and not others. Granada and Hotuni Zigar and KajAcikAnor seemed to respond well. Others not so much. And others - not at all. My Salavatskis and Afghanskis have some age on them - and are quite a bit larger and fuller than many of the varieties . . . but I’ve only had a handful of pomegranates from those. There are so many different factors at work, I’m sure. Like the difference in age of the trees. And the sensitivity to weather - and timing of the blooming.
And when you say ‘perfect’ flower . . . is that what is usually the case with any fruit that is recommended as ‘self-pollinating’? I’d never heard of the term ‘perfect flower’ before. But it makes sense.
I see that arrangement most often in mine as well. Sometimes there are only three male flowers in a cluster though.
Perfect just means that there are both male and female parts in the same flower. Sometimes you’ll see the terms hermaphrodite or bisexual used instead. Having perfect flowers doesn’t mean that the plant is capable of self-pollinating. For example, plants like apples and cherries have perfect flowers but usually require pollen from a genetically different individual to be fertilized.
Technically, all pomegranate flowers are perfect in that they have both male and female parts, but the female parts of a “male” pomegranate flower are nonfunctional. In comparison, male squash flowers are not perfect and lack all traces of an ovary or stigma.
Safe to say my pomegranate cuttings and seedlings would’ve liked to have been up potted mid summer. I’m amazed at how quickly they rooted and then stunted in these containers. I moved one to 7g mid summer, and it is now 4 times bigger than these. But, at this point, I think they’ll wait until spring for new pots as none of them are cold hardy and I’ll enjoy the smaller footprint in my garage for one winter. They also started to yellow 2 weeks ago, but decided I’m not fertilizing them again this late. If anyone thinks I should, please advise.
The one in my pots started to yellow. The one in the ground is still green. I still fertilize the pot because for me, I still have a good 1 month left before the cold season started. So, hopefully the fertilizer will help with the root development and kick start next year.
My poms are really getting ripe now. This Kaj Acik Anor is much milder, less acidic, and definitely sweeter than the Granada and others. Lighter colored arils. Very successful (for Virginia!) and I’m so pleasantly surprised!
Those are my newest pomegranates from seed. First time it produce fruits. Good production and the size of the fruit is nice. I picked the smallest one to sample. The taste is very promising. It’s a little sweet with nutty taste. No sour or bitter taste. The seed inside are white and light pink. It’s not ripe yet. In November, I’ll do another sample.
This pomegranate have a different color. Color looks bronze. It’s super sweet and stingy. There is only one fruit on the tree. Last year there was 4. It’s the 2nd time it produce fruit. It’s super red inside and very sweet.
Pomegranate cutting question: I ordered some from Marta that are arriving here shortly. Should I store them in fridge until spring or pot up and leave in garage over winter? Does it matter? I grew from cuttings this year, I know it’s super easy, but I got and started them all in mid March. I ordered Vkusnyi, Myatadzhy and Ariana - I have no idea how hardy these are; they are destined for container life. (There is going to be a great pomegranate purge here in a few years because I have way too many container pomegranates started!!)
Eager to get these out of my fridge- any opinions at all about not starting until they can be outside versus dark garage versus in the house under grow lights around 70°? I have them triple bagged, but there’s so much produce in my fridge and it’s constantly being opened.
Anyone growing the seemingly defunct Proven Winners Peppy le Pom?