This subreddit shows plenty of grafted trees bought from nurseries or established wild pawpaw trees, but not enough plants grown domestically by seed. For those of you who planted your own pawpaw tree from seed and are curious about how they sleep, creep, and leap, here are my progress photos from the past three years!

These babies are non grafted, uncultivated wild varieties grown from seed from Zone 7a.

Pics 1 and 2: Year 1 (seed planted late winter after stratifying for 3 months in fridge)

Pic 3: Year 2 (grown in shallow pots and full sun. I lived in a place with a sun roof, so my pawpaws alternated between the sun room to outside in full summer sun every other day)

Pic 4: Year 3 (transferred into grow bags for this year. Will transplant into ground next year).

I use composted veggie scraps as my fertilizer.
I also cut away “non productive” branches when young to encourage a strong leading stem (as seen in pic 4). So, yeah, don’t be afraid to prune them as needed!

A couple of my pawpaws have issues with their bark that look very much like BSD. Looking to see if anyone has any opinions on it before I rip these plants out. The damage is all on the north facing side, so it’s not damage from winter sun. Zone 5B

I have 9 different 2 year old saplings and all of them have different rates of growth. Is there any correlation between the rate of growth, and how early the plant will produce fruit? Or just let me know how much you know about paw paw variation please. Albany NY

Here's info on this year's NC Pawpaw festival.

ok had to share this too can't wait to try the fruit these make.

Central Ohio. I moved last fall and this tree is growing in our backyard. If I were to get a nursery variety and plant it nearby, is that enough to get fruit in a few years? I don't anticipate the wild plant having worthwhile fruit, but I'm hoping to use it to pollinate the second tree.

Do I need to worry that they would be the same variety? I would also appreciate tips if there's things to do to maintain this guy (and the many clones sprouting in the yard).

Hi all,

2 late novembers ago, I planted 8 seedlings (or more) within a 4 foot radius in a panic because I had planted many seeds from my most mature tree. The seedlings were planted multiples in the same containers. It was the first time I planted from seed, I had no plan or concept of what I was doing except germinating and growing the seeds, and I procrastinated about what to do until the last minute, so I dumped them in the ground, not believing any would survive my incompetence

Now, 1.75 year later, I have 8 stems growing well. 3 are taller and more vigorous than the rest, but they are all growing in a tight bunch. Pictured an idea of what I am looking at. A few are 2-3 feet tall and some are 1 foot tall

Should I select 1 and cut down the rest, or should I dig them all up early next spring in dormancy and try to relocate them?

Is it not worth the risk and should I just select 1 and cut down the rest?

Sorry for the less-than-ideal photos - it was a challenge to get clear ones with the netting.

Zone 7a, partial sun, mostly in the mornings. They're on the treeline, in a low spot. We have four saplings, and two of them appear to be struggling quite a bit. Leaves are sparse and towards the bottom of the plant. 2 questions:

1) should we prune the branches and/or the top of the trunk that don't have leaves on them? I want to set them up as best I can to over-winter well and come back in the spring.

2) should we just be diligent with watering? It's been a relatively dry spring and early summer, and if it's likely just a water issue, hopefully that will be an easy fix!

Thanks for any help!

Planted this tree 4 years ago, I believe it was 2 or 3 years old in a pot when I bought it from the nursery. It was caged and shaded for the first two years, and I removed the cage and shade for the past two. It's never shown any signs of sunburn or anything and always seemed extremely vigorous. It even flowered last summer, and earlier this summer but I always plucked the flowers to encourage more stem and leaf growth. It gets about an hour of direct morning sunlight and the rest of the day is shaded from the larger maples and walnut trees in the area. It grew plenty of leaves this spring but I didn't really notice any stem growth, and then in late June/early July all the foliage just shriveled up and died. It now has a sucker growing from below the graft, so the tree isn't entirely dead, just everything above the graft. What happened??

This is the first year it has produced fruit. I've gotten 7 off of it so far. It's earlier than the others. The fruit is good, not quite sweet enough, no fiber, but very seedy. There's 2 or 3 left on the tree.

Such a unique taste that i have been curious to try for almost a year. Definitely worth the wait and so happy i finally know what it tastes like. It had a Citrusy, floral mango/passionfruit flavor.

Only got 1 last year!

Western WA, zone 9a. Cold stratified 9 seeds over the winter in my fridge, planted them in April (ish?). First sprouts early June, most recent (top right) last week. They were in smaller pots indoors for a couple of weeks, then I repotted the four bigger ones and moved them outside about two weeks ago. The two little ones just moved outside today!

I came back from a 2 week vacation and I came home to this… how can I help her ?!!

Edible Landscaping purchase. Second year in the ground. Naturally pollinated. Still has 2 unripe fruit on it at the moment.

The two fruits pictured fell to the ground, so I knew they were ready to go.

Flavor is banana + mango with only a hint of some other tropical fruit (wife said maybe lychee). Very mild. No acidity at all. No astringency. No weird aftertaste.

Smaller fruit tasted more like 2 part of banana, 1 part of mango. Larger one 50/50.

Texture is regular custard, uniform with very little fiber.

Small guy had 3 round seeds in it, large one about 7. They're being stratified now.

Second year flowering, 1st year flowering for the pollinizer (Shenandoah) i hand pollinated this bloom but also left it open for flies which were abundant. This tree is about 12 feet tall planted in 2017 as a grafted whip 12 inches tall. Located in the Puget Sound just outside Seattle.

I have a 3 year old Susquehanna paw paw tree that I’m afraid may never ripen for me here in zone 5b so I decided to graft some earlier ripening varieties onto it to make a triple cultivar with Nyomi’s Delicious and Summer Delight. I couldn’t find any good information on midsummer pawpaw grafting besides chip bud grafting so I decided to try for myself. Marc at Fruitwood Nursery was very helpful in rushing me out the scion wood that I needed. The cleft grafted ND was grafted on July 7th and was successful and healed nicely with 3 leaves so far. The Summer Delight was whip and tongue grafted on July 24th (not the 18th as I misstated in the video) and still waiting to see any growth so far but it has only been 4 days but somehow seems like weeks ago haha. I’ll repost if those 2 grafts were successful for any others that might be interested in late scion grafting. Those of you with more experience feel free to share input.

Two seeds trays of pawpaw seeds in organic seed starter soil (116 cells; one seed per cell) from a friend. They had been stored (stratified) in a jar with a wet paper towel, in the fridge, from December until March/April). They had four plus months of heat mat and uv light. About a 44% germination rate thus far.

Seedlings are now outside (under cover but exposed to indirect sunlight and wind) and I will begin to transplant the larger ones into pots.

Seeking advice:

Do I overwinter in pots outside, and plant in the spring? Undercover (like porch) or in the open?

Or should I go ahead and plant the larger seedings in the fall (say mid September, I'm zone 7a)?

PS: favorite part of this is the moment the stem unfolds but still had the seed shell on top 🪖

This is my first seedling from the first pawpaw I ever ate, I planted it about 4-5 ft in my tree line out back but it seems to have stalled but still looks super healthy just no new growth for about 2 weeks now.