Give it to me straight doc, is she dead?
Not an expert opinion, but I think the tree will recover if watered consistently. Just don’t overdo it trying to compensate. Move the pot into shade. Water moderately daily.
p.s. American persimmon gets quite large – >60’. With aggressive annual pruning you might keep it at 20’ more or less, but there’s no way it’s be happy in a pot. I hope you plan to put the tree in the ground. That’ll also solve your watering problem.
Thanks, I’ll move it to a shady spot. Any chance it’ll send out new leaves this season or will it go into early dormancy?
I’m aware of their max height,
I have cultivars of both planted in the ground, but I was planning on keeping both this persimmon and a Pawpaw pots as a large pseudo-bonsai experiment. Both species will readily remain small in the understory, so I wanted to see if I could keep them artificially small in partial shade and with yearly root/branch pruning.
I can only guess. Any growth this late in the season could be vulnerable to winter damage, so I think you should hope for pseudo-dormancy until cold weather hits (then real dormancy).
I’m curious about your bonsai experiment. Do you plan to prune the roots regularly? And are you hoping for fruit? Thx.
I was planning on alternating limb and root pruning every year starting this fall, though I may end up holding off on the persimmon this year. I’m hoping on them being males so I can have some nearby pollinators for my cultivars and as stock for scion wood, but the persimmon would make an excellent decoration if it does end up being female. They’re both from seed so who knows what they’ll be, I might go hunting for a wild male tree in the meantime.
It’s been interesting to watch them grow, the pawpaw is happy with any watering schedule and any conditions, which contradicts what I’ve read about not being well suited to pots, direct sunlight, or dry soil. Despite a lot of documentation on both Japaneese and American persimmons being relatively easy to care for in pots, this one seems to be far more sensitive this year compared to last. Too dry and it wilts, too wet and it wilts, too much wind and it wilts, too much sun and it wilts, too little sun and it wilts, but also everything above the bottom two branches is growth from this season. It must be happy about something.
Do you want a pollinator because you think you need it? Usually, you don’t – unless you want seeds. Pretty much all named varieties of American persimmon are parthenocarpic, so they will bear seedless fruit if not pollinated. Some people claim that there is a heavier crop with pollination but I don’t think you’ll need more fruit. That’d mean thinning the crop manually to protect branches from breaking.
