Are you curious about these small native trees and their sweet, custardy fruits? If you’ve never seen or tasted a pawpaw, you’re in for a treat. In this article, native plant expert Liessa Bowen introduces the pawpaw tree and all the basics you’ll need to know so you can grow your own!
I have to admit, I’ve been a huge fan of pawpaw trees since I was a little kid. It may have started with a song about “Little Suzie” who went “Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch” to pick a bunch of pawpaws and put them in her pocket. I always imagined she had really big pockets that were loaded down with wild fruits. When I saw my first pawpaw tree growing in the wild, I’m sure I went wild with glee to finally taste these delicious fruits for myself.
Pawpaws (Asimina triloba) are native to the central and eastern United States and provide great value to the home landscape. In their native habitat, you’ll see them in moist woodlands and woodland edges. As a landscaping plant, they are a welcome addition to an edible landscape, wildlife-friendly habitat, or native garden.
Growing a pawpaw tree successfully starts with a favorable habitat with moist soil and a bit of sunlight. These trees may require a bit of pampering to get them securely settled in a new home. Once established, however, you’ll find pawpaw trees to be hardy and easy to grow.
As a small tree, pawpaws are versatile. These low-maintenance trees provide edible fruits, ornamental foliage, unusual flowers, and plenty of year-round interest. You won’t get fruits with a single tree, so if you’re considering growing pawpaws for their fruits, you’ll need to plant at least two.
Now let’s dig in to some details and you’ll soon be ready to plant and grow your own grove of pawpaw trees.
Pawpaw trees are native to North America. Their range includes southeastern Canada, south to Florida, and west to Texas. These trees typically grow in moist, deciduous forests, along streams, and near wetlands where they get plenty of regular soil moisture and also plenty of shade.
As long as there have been people in the Americas, people have been eating pawpaws. These trees produce an abundance of sweet fruits that are edible raw, making them easily accessible to anyone to simply harvest and eat. As plant growers became interested in these native fruits, they started breeding them to form a number of cultivars, some of which are available commercially.
The common pawpaw is a deciduous, fruit-bearing tree that grows 15 – 30 feet tall. These trees develop a single main trunk with smooth, gray bark. They are sparsely branched and develop a pyramidal form with lower branches tending to be longer and more pendulous than upper branches.
Pawpaw leaves are uniformly bright green with smooth edges. They are oblong and narrower at the base closest to the stem and broadest at the pointed tip. The leaves hang gently downwards for a slightly floppy appearance. In the fall, these leaves turn attractive shades of yellow and orange before dropping for the winter.
They bloom in the spring. Their flowers are a bit unusual. Each flower measures one to three inches across and has six distinct yet overlapping brownish-maroon petals. The three outer petals are larger and form an overall triangular shape with the three smaller petals forming a central, smaller triangular shape. Each flower has both male and female parts but they are not self-fertile. You’ll need at least two different pawpaw trees for cross-pollination and fruit production.
The fruits ripen in mid to late summer in the south and late summer to early fall in more northern climates. Pawpaw fruits can be up to six inches long and look somewhat like an oblong pear. Their smooth skins ripen from green to yellowish-green, sometimes with harmless brown spots appearing on ripe fruits. The skin is soft and easily bruised.
Ripe fruits have a tender yellowish inner flesh. They have a sweet flavor often described as a cross between a banana and a mango. The texture is smooth and custardy rather than crispy or crunchy. Each mango fruit typically contains several large, smooth, flat, black seeds. The pulpy part of the fruit is fully edible when ripe. The skin and seeds are not edible.
These trees don’t produce fruits right away. They generally need to be around seven years old before they start to flower and form fruits, although the age of first fruiting will vary depending on the general health of the tree and its growing conditions.
Pawpaws are not self-fertile and a single tree will bloom but not bear fruits. You’ll need at least two separate trees to produce fruits. Since natural pawpaw pollinators are not particularly dependable, you can help your plants along by doing some hand pollination. When both trees are blooming in the spring, simply use a soft paintbrush to gather pollen from one tree and share it with the flowers of the other tree, and vice versa.
Fruits start to form immediately after flowering. In the beginning, they are small, oblong, firm, and green. The fruits ripen anywhere from August to October, depending on local climate conditions. Once they start to ripen, all the fruits on the tree will be fully ripe within a short two-week period. Harvest them when they become slightly soft and yellow. Ripe fruits will release easily from their stems.
Pawpaw fruits are best eaten fresh. They will last for a few days at room temperature or for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. The soft inner flesh is edible. The large black seeds and skin are not edible. Many people like to cut a pawpaw in half and use a spoon to scoop out the flesh, separating it from the skin.
Pawpaws naturally reproduce by seed and by developing colonies from root suckers. New plants that develop from root suckers are genetically identical to the parent plant while plants grown from seed will be genetically unique individuals and therefore able to cross-pollinate and produce.
You can sow fresh pawpaw seeds in moist soil in your yard and hope they germinate the following spring, or you can try sprouting the seeds in pots and have a bit more control over their environment.
Want to try growing your own pawpaw tree from seed? The process is simple but requires patience. Pawpaw seeds need cold, moist stratification for 70-100 days, followed by a long germination period.
Harvest fresh seeds from a mature pawpaw fruit and wash them off to remove the skin-like membrane surrounding each seed. Place the freshly washed seeds on a moist paper towel, wrap them up in the moist towel, and place the moistened seed packet in a plastic bag. Cold stratify this packet in the refrigerator until February or March. Don’t let the seeds dry out after harvesting or they quickly lose viability.
After this period of cold stratification, place the seeds in individual pots filled with moist potting soil. The pots should be tall enough to accommodate a long taproot and they should have good drainage. Seeds should be planted one inch deep and kept moist at around 60-70°F (16-21°C).
Keep the seeds warm and moist until they germinate, which could be anywhere from three weeks to three months. Don’t give up if they don’t germinate right away, they are very slow to get started. Even after germination, you’ll need to continue being patient. Trees started from seed won’t begin to bear fruit until they are seven or eight years old.