These flowers have a mildly yeasty smell to better attract their pollinators: carrion flies, fungus gnats, beetles, and ants.
In spring small maroon bell-shaped flowers emerge before leaves. Best of all, pawpaws require no herbicides or pesticides to thrive, having few pests or diseases. Once established they are quite drought tolerant. Consistent moisture is key as well as good drainage. Ideally, pawpaw trees like a soil pH between 6 and 6.5 but will tolerate a much broader range. They are a temperate member of a tropical family that will grow and fruit in Zones 5-9. Growing two or more varieties will produce a greater fruit yield. Trees tend to sucker and form clonal colonies in shade but this can be easily controlled.
#Paw paw tree flower full#
Although in the wild they seek some shade they should be grown in full sun for best fruit production. An attractive tree with large drooping leaves, pawpaws have a pyramidal shape and generally reach 10-20’ in height (but can be controlled for size). Pawpaws produce the largest edible fruit native to the USA, with a range south to LA and GA, north to IL and PA, east to the coast, and west to Nebraska. There was a short step from that discovery to growing my own. My first encounter with them was along the canal towpath in Potomac where I found 6” soft yellow fruits littered the ground. The pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a small native fruiting tree found along stream banks and forest edges and often as an understory tree in moist areas. One of our most frequently asked questions in the developing orchard at the Baltimore County Master Gardeners’ Demonstration Garden may surprise you (it did us!) - “What do you know about pawpaws?” * Pawpaw ( Asimina triloba) fruits ripening.
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