Hi, does anyone grow Asimina triloba, the hardy american pawpaw?

It would be good to hear about your experience with it. How long did
it take to fruit? Was the fruit worth growing it for? Is it necessary
to grow two trees to ensure pollination? Do you need much space?

Thanks,

Clare.
(gardening on excellant Thames silt loam, with clay subsoil)

"Clare" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi, does anyone grow Asimina triloba, the hardy american pawpaw?

It would be good to hear about your experience with it. How long did
it take to fruit? Was the fruit worth growing it for? Is it necessary
to grow two trees to ensure pollination? Do you need much space?

Thanks,

Clare.
(gardening on excellant Thames silt loam, with clay subsoil)

Let me make it clear that my knowledge of this plant is limited to eating
the fruit.
extract from RHS
"It needs long , hot summers to achieve tree stature, and to flower and
fruit freely . In cooler climates, it is grown as a multi-stemmed foliage
shrub"

It does sound an attractive shrub/bush/tree in it's own right--might plant a
few seeds.

"Rupert" wrote in message
...

"Clare" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi, does anyone grow Asimina triloba, the hardy american pawpaw?

It would be good to hear about your experience with it. How long did
it take to fruit? Was the fruit worth growing it for? Is it necessary
to grow two trees to ensure pollination? Do you need much space?

Thanks,

Clare.
(gardening on excellant Thames silt loam, with clay subsoil)

Let me make it clear that my knowledge of this plant is limited to eating
the fruit.
extract from RHS
"It needs long , hot summers to achieve tree stature, and to flower and
fruit freely . In cooler climates, it is grown as a multi-stemmed foliage
shrub"

extract from Hillier
"In this country forms a large deciduous shrub. The unusual purplish flowers
are borne in May to June as the leaves emerge.
The curious fruits , which frequently form on a plant in the Hillier Gardens
and Arboretum, are edible when ripe"

That given me a good chuckle. Hillier 6th edition 1991

I tried to research these questions, although I have never acted upon it and put anything in the ground, for a variety of reasons. Probably you can get definitive answers if you read one of the sources I quote below.

You need two trees for cross-pollination (I have read "different varieties", but usually cross-pollination means two plants grown from different seeds, and since it is always seed grown, never grafted, any two plants probably suffice, though I can't be absolutely sure about that). They need considerable shade for the first year in the ground, though later they need good sun (reflecting their forest origin), so it is traditional to put them in a sunny spot with a bottomless barrel around the young plant for the first year to shade it, or else growing up in the shade of a fence that they will emerge from. They need to be put in the ground as soon as possible, they don't like being pot-grown for an extended period and then put in the ground. I have seen "5-10 years for first fruit" quoted.

The only supplier I have discovered who can give you a named variety (as a plant) is www.agroforestry.co.uk (plants sold out for this season). In the past they had more than one plant variety on their list, but now I only see one, so to be safe you may need to source a second plant from someone else. They also sell seeds: the instructions are "cold stratify 13 weeks" so you may be a bit late for this season to do that (if seeds with such instructions are within your capability, I've never succeeded).

They also sell these publications:

Factsheet F08: Pawpaw - Asimina triloba Price: £1.50

Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden
by Lee Reich
Timber Press, 2004. ISBN 0-88192-623-X. 288 pp. £17.99.
This fine book is a collection of over 20 monographs on unusual fruits, most of which are uncommon in Britain and the information about them is of great value to anyone thinking of growing them here. They include juneberries (Amelanchier), beach plum (Prunus maritima), musk strawberries (Fragaria moschata), pawpaw (Asimina triloba), raisin tree (Hovenia dulcis), lingonberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), hardy kiwi (Actinidia), mulberries (Morus), persimmons (Diospyros), Elaeagnus, maypop (Passiflora incarnata), che (Cudrania), Nanking cherry (Prunus tomentosa), Lowbush blueberries (Vaccinium), jujube (Ziziphus) and the shipova (xSorbopyrus).

Agroforestry News Vol 2 No 2
Gaultherias, Hazel (1), Pawpaw, Beech, Ground covers (1), Grafting - rootstocks. Price: £4.00

Agroforestry News Vol 9 No 4
Forest gardening: Plants for difficult sites (3) – small shrubs, Hicans, Ink disease, Peaches (2), Plants for façade insulation, The soil foodweb, Asimina triloba – pawpaw. Price: £4.00

So do they taste nice?

In article ,
echinosum writes:
|
| Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden
| by Lee Reich
| Timber Press, 2004. ISBN 0-88192-623-X. 288 pp. £17.99.
| This fine book is a collection of over 20 monographs on unusual fruits,
| most of which are uncommon in Britain and the information about them is
| of great value to anyone thinking of growing them here. They include
| juneberries (Amelanchier), beach plum (Prunus maritima), musk
| strawberries (Fragaria moschata), pawpaw (Asimina triloba), raisin tree
| (Hovenia dulcis), lingonberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), hardy kiwi
| (Actinidia), mulberries (Morus), persimmons (Diospyros), Elaeagnus,
| maypop (Passiflora incarnata), che (Cudrania), Nanking cherry (Prunus
| tomentosa), Lowbush blueberries (Vaccinium), jujube (Ziziphus) and the
| shipova (xSorbopyrus).

Well, maybe. I know only a few of those, but I doubt very much
that all will fruit in the UK, though some certainly do. At least
Passiflora incarnata is seriously tender in the UK. It has lasted
a couple of years with me, and I have had flowers, but no fruit
but that took 3 goes and it is in a most unusual location.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Thanks very much. I was thinking of growing from seed after seeing
they're sold by jungleseeds.co.uk.

My experience of growing anything from seed for the first time is that
there are several risks:
- you can make a mistake in the care of the seedlings at some point
and loose them,
- you can grow the plant on really sucessfully to the palnting out
stage and then dicover that there's something about the particular
conditions/pests/available space in your garden which isn't as suitable
for the plant as your initial research lead you to believe
- or finally that the whole thing is a success, but in the end you
decide that you don't like the plant's shape/colour/tast of fruit etc.

On the other hand, sometimes plants sometimes turn out to be willing to
put up with more than you thought - for example I decided not to grow
raspberried because they prefer an acid soil, which I don't have, but
someone persuaded me to try anyway and actually they reapberries are
pretty happy, they show signs of a bit of chlorosis now and then, but
they're pretty tough plants really and are very happy to give me a nice
crop. Other plants are more sensitive to conditions and less vigorous
and wouldn't put up with that kind of thing.

Of course if you grow something from seed, and it all goes well, and
you like it, it's fabulous because you've got a great plant, for very
little cost and you've nurtured it the whole way.

So I'm really wondering - has anyone actually succeeded in growing
Asimina triloba from seed to fruiting maturity, how easy/difficult was
it, and was the end result a tree you really wanted in your garden?
I'm equally interested to hear from anyone who has tried to grow this
and failed, or tried and is now nursing a young tree!

Clare.

Clare wrote:
[...]
So I'm really wondering - has anyone actually succeeded in growing
Asimina triloba from seed to fruiting maturity, how easy/difficult was
it, and was the end result a tree you really wanted in your garden?
I'm equally interested to hear from anyone who has tried to grow this
and failed, or tried and is now nursing a young tree!

Take care, though: as I understand it, in the US they often use
"paw-paw" for what I call a "custard apple". On the other hand, yet a
third thing may be in the air, as the picture at
http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plan...a_triloba.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/7eltx

doesn't look like either to me.

Whatever the truth of the matter, I don't think there's a snowball's of
ripening either paw-paws (in the sense of those rugby-ball-shaped fruit)
or custard-apples in Britain, and even fruiting would pleasantly
surprise me. Pity, as both are divine -- if you think the things at
Waitrose etc fairly represent paw-paws, I do hope you'll be able to take
a trip to warmer climes one day soon.

--
Mike.

In article ,
Mike Lyle wrote:

Take care, though: as I understand it, in the US they often use
"paw-paw" for what I call a "custard apple". On the other hand, yet a
third thing may be in the air, as the picture at
http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plan...a_triloba.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/7eltx

doesn't look like either to me.

That's right. In the USA, the term pawpaw is used for something
native to the Americas, and they tend to use papaya for the original
pawpaw.

Whatever the truth of the matter, I don't think there's a snowball's of
ripening either paw-paws (in the sense of those rugby-ball-shaped fruit)
or custard-apples in Britain, and even fruiting would pleasantly
surprise me. Pity, as both are divine -- if you think the things at
Waitrose etc fairly represent paw-paws, I do hope you'll be able to take
a trip to warmer climes one day soon.

Pawpaws, possibly, in a stove house - but I wouldn't bother. The
plants are thoroughly undecorative (as David Poole said, like a
gargantuan brussel sprout), but can take both humidity and its
lack. Most of the Annona can't - they are true, humid tropicals.

I agree with you that pawpaws picked green (and they have to be
picked VERY green to travel) and artificially ripened are not worth
the effort of eating. I wouldn't call them divine, though they
are good with lime juice to cut their sickliness - and were the
traditional equivalent to melon in the Empah.

Custard apples, cherimoya, sour sop and sweet sop all have their
fans.

There was some recent nonsense about a radical new type of banana
(red skinned!), which made me fall about laughing. It was the
usual complete drivel.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Dave Poole writes:
| Nick Maclaren wrote:
|
| That's right. In the USA, the term pawpaw is used for something
| native to the Americas, and they tend to use papaya for the original
| pawpaw.
|
| Yup, I can't quite find out how the term "paw-paw" became applied to
| Papaya, because as I understand it, the name is almost always referred
| to Asimina in the US. Migration of common names for American natives
| tends to be from west to east, so I can only surmise that 'Papaya' and
| 'paw-paw' became confused on this side of the Atlantic.

You have it the wrong way round - my posting was correct. The OED
has the first use for Carica papaya in 1624, and the first for
Asimina triloba in 1709. It was the Yanks getting confused, not us!

My guess (going beyond the OED) is that pawpaw is a corruption of
papaya in some Far Eastern pidgin, and was picked up into British
English in the way that so many such words have been.

The original name was, indeed, papaya - but we have Spanish to
thank for introducing that.

However, I seem to have been misleading, in that Carica papaya is
also native to the Americas!

| Pawpaws, possibly, in a stove house - but I wouldn't bother. The
| plants are thoroughly undecorative
|
| Careful Nick, dyed-in-th-Wool exoticists rather like the terminal
| clusters of large, broad leaves and the cauliflorous style of
| flowering.

Interesting, yes, but it seems perverse to regard them as decorative!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.