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Satisfying work.
I'm so jealous. I've been hunting for some around me. I'm supposed to be in the right area but can't find any. I should just go buy a sapling or seed.
You should. Much higher chance of getting fruit if you have some genetic diversity in your plant stock. So I've ordered some from a couple different people, had people send me seeds, and rescued my own.
Hopefully after I get some seeds here from some wild trees near me, I'd be happy to mail you some to stratify.
Good luck in your journey, DM me if you want to talk pawpaws.
Very jealous. I've been trying to grow Pawpaw in zone2b climate but I've not yet managed to get a sapling to survive past two winters yet. However, those were in scorching summer drought years too so that did not help. There's a man in Quebec whose been working with these trees so they can survive extreme cold up here. Now we had a year's worth of rain in one month early summer and still more rain since so I'm hopeful this time.
Keep trying. Hopefully at some point it will stick. The breeding and grafting of these has gained traction. So someone really might develop a resistant version at some point. It's a fun hobby to mess with them that I think is inherently rewarding for its own activity, rather than necessarily requiring any perfect outcomes. So, document or share your experiences. Someone else can learn from what you learn. And we can all work together to help keep this wonderful tree common throughout North America.
I have hundreds, goddamn hundreds of them on my property. Almost never see the fruit. I think they might almost all be juvenile trees.
Part of the rub with them is that they need, or rather prefer, some genetic diversity to get fruit. It's a colonial organism, so if you see a whole big patch of them, good chance it's all the exact same one or a couple closely related ones that have spread out like the aspen trees in Colorado.
You can go buy a couple ones locally or have them mailed to you and significantly improve your chances of getting fruit. You can also hand pollinate those little red flowers with a paintbrush.
It takes about 8 years for them to mature to get a fruit. Those things are picky too, but gosh do I love Paw-Paw season.
Until I was given one to eat by a hobbyist who has a tree in his yard on Long Island, I assumed they were an Indian plant because of the Disney movie.
In my humble and largely meaningless opinion, they are one of the most enchanting plants in North America.
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
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Native Plant Gardening
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