Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I became a member of a pawpaw growers group on Facebook and shared my story of the five bare-root pawpaw cultivars I planted, purchased from starkbros, I believe in 2016, and how on the 2nd or 3rd year one of the trees got broken off a few inches ground by what I suspect was a deer running over it or using it as a rub (although it didn't have rub marks). I didn't do anything to that pawpaw tree that had broken, just let it be undisturbed hoping it would grow back. For the next 3 full years there was no new growth above ground - no leaves in the spring, nothing. I was trying to decide what to do with that blank spot but was also fighting cancer too so it kinda got pushed down on the to-do list stack to complete. On the 4th year after getting damaged, it sprung back to life by sending up 4 new shoots from the roots underground. Originally I planned to keep the strongest one and get rid of the others but they were all growing vigorously, so much so they are all individually taller and bushier than the others I planted 4 years earlier. All of these varieties flower vigorously each spring with maybe close to 50 blooms each, I hand pollinate the flowers, but usually we get a late frost that kills the pollinated blooms off. Some years, like last year and this year, I get lucky and actually get pawpaw fruit (mostly because it was a light spring frost). There was some confusion about how I planted these in 36" fire rings and kept saying 4 rings have a single tree and 1 ring has 4 or 5 trees. Hope this clarifies.
I became a member of a pawpaw growers group on Facebook and shared my story of the five bare-root pawpaw cultivars I planted, purchased from starkbros, I believe in 2016, and how on the 2nd or 3rd year one of the trees got broken off a few inches ground by what I suspect was a deer running over it or using it as a rub (although it didn't have rub marks). I didn't do anything to that pawpaw tree that had broken, just let it be undisturbed hoping it would grow back. For the next 3 full years there was no new growth above ground - no leaves in the spring, nothing. I was trying to decide what to do with that blank spot but was also fighting cancer too so it kinda got pushed down on the to-do list stack to complete. On the 4th year after getting damaged, it sprung back to life by sending up 4 new shoots from the roots underground. Originally I planned to keep the strongest one and get rid of the others but they were all growing vigorously, so much so they are all individually taller and bushier than the others I planted 4 years earlier. All of these varieties flower vigorously each spring with maybe close to 50 blooms each, I hand pollinate the flowers, but usually we get a late frost that kills the pollinated blooms off. Some years, like last year and this year, I get lucky and actually get pawpaw fruit (mostly because it was a light spring frost). There was some confusion about how I planted these in 36" fire rings and kept saying 4 rings have a single tree and 1 ring has 4 or 5 trees. Hope this clarifies.
