Hey Scott, I just ordered a bunch of 3 gallon containers. I'm going to purchase a 'Saijo' and one other Asian persimmon. Then, in addition to my 'Meader' American, I'm going to purchase a 'Szukis' and one other American cultivar. I want to experiment, after these threes are established single (well-pruned specimens) in producing an Asian Persimmon duo multi-graft (Saijo and one other) and produce an American persimmon trio (Meader, Szukis, and one other). If they don't work out, it will be ok since I'll have them separately growing (pruned). 1.Since you highly recommend the PVNA Asian types, in addition to the 'Saijo', I want to grow one PVNA (perhaps 'Chocolate'); I live in Zone 6b, and I know that 'Saijo' is said to be cold-hardy down to -10F. What would be a recommended variety of PVNA that would be cold-hardy for zone 6? From what I've read, 'Chocolate' is not an option (whereas other sites contradict this, claiming it would work out in zone 6). 2. What varieties of American persimmon (flavor) are you familiar with? Some have suggested 'Szukis' is the best and that 'Meader' is not necessarily the best tasting variety, comparatively. 3. Do you think that I can, forever, continue to summer prune an American persimmon tree - if I wanted to keep it under 10' feet, or would this eventually stress and kill the tree years down the line? 4. As for the 'Saijo' and PVNA Asian varieties, can I place the tree only 8' from my pavers/walk way - or will the roots destroy the paves? I intend to prune the lowest branches so that the lowest limb is above 6' off the ground so that it can spread without obstructing the walk-way. Thanks, Steve

re-post - correction on the bottom... Hi, I have a bit of a dilemma relevant to some basic questions regarding American persimmons. I could use some expert advice. I have, on their way from John Brittain of Nollin River Nursery, a 'Morris Burton', 'Early Golden', 'Szukis', and 'Prok' (from starkbros). I have a maximum square portion space of 30' by 30' to dedicate to growing a single American persimmon; (I'm using it in my native plant/native fruit plant yard nature-scape project that I'm going to eventually base a website encouraging native naturescaping and native fruits). As I mentioned previously, I am considering putting all 4 varieties in a single hole, about 5" apart from one another in a box-shape formation, so that they might grow, expanding their trunks until they fuse to form a solid trunk: inosculation/approach grafting. Someone suggested to me that this may cause the trunk to rot and may not cause a true fusion, leaving 4 cores separate. Since I haven't seen too many American persimmons in nature (all of which have been under 20' in height), can you tell me a little about pruning them and so on: 1. What is the advantage to pruning the height since (as long as grown in the open) the lowest branches will still be reachable? 2. In the north (i.e. NJ), generally, how wide do you think that an American persimmon grown in full sun on moist, well-drained soil would reach in 50 years time? I believe 30' wide and 50' tall. 3. If I planted the 4 trees separately spaced at 15' apart, instead of the above approach, could I easily prune them anually to be a life-long width of only 15'? If I did this, would this result in a disproportionately wide trunk and branches (as with some bonsai specimins) and weaken the tree through frustrating its natural growth inclination? I think restrictive pruning practices are determental to the lifespan of trees and shrubs. 3a. If I can prune each to 15' apart, since it will be a relatively small tree, I can probably consolidate and keep just one tree consisting of multiple varieties; although persimmons are not easy to maintain as a multi-graft project, if kept under 20', I don't see how I couldn't label each of the 4-varieties of main limbs and prune each so that no one dominates over the others; I could keep track of variety of each main branch and see to it that all new branches are kept in ballance. If I were to let the tree grow too large, of course, when the tree drops old branches, it would drop the initial set and may be replace by just 1, 2, (or 3) of the original 4. 4. What about this idea... I've never heard of it, but it seems like it could be a GREAT idea? which could apply to all fruit tree multi-grafting - no maintance required. What if you did a graft of a single variety unto a root stock and once that 1st variety forms an extended lead, graft a 2nd above it to continue the single lead, and a 3rd, and 4th, and so on; in this way, as the sapling grows into a tree, the trunk will be formed of a sequence of 4 segments (varieties)? It would be like a linear sequence of 4 pencils, glued tip-to-eraser. Each pencil, i.e. each trunk segment, will put forth buds from the side of the trunk to form the branches that will, of course, be of its self-same variety. No more loosing varieties to competition. If I were to do this, I would graft the single-lead sequence of 4 plus the bottom two at the top, for a total of 6 just in case the lowest portion of the tree has no limbs when the tree is mature/tall. I bet this has been done - I'll try to do a good enough search to find out. Thanks, Steve

Please, read this instead: Initially, I thought it would be a good idea to plant multiple saplings (each a different cultivar) into the same hole only 5" apart from one another hoping that they will, eventually, fuse (inosculate) together into a single trunk when they have all expanded to fill-in the space between each other. I, ultimately, decided against this strategy upon the advice of Jerry Lehman who suggested that the trunks would not likely fuse and would become diseased, etc. I don't know, but I think that this might not be the best solution. But what if this was done when the trunks were only 1" wide, if that, and placed flushed against eachother (bare-root)? Then I looked into 'approach grafting'. But the principle is the same, because Jerry recommended that Diospyros virginiana trunks, in particular, do not heal well when wounded - but if saplings, I would think it would be the same as if grafted (that heals...). Well, having just read your reply to the above post, I'm thinking about waiting until my 'Meader' is large enough and then, maybe attempting a multi graft onto it. Can you please give a detailed description of how you would do this. Would it be the same as with an apple tree? Do you mean that you would cut off each limb and do something of a rind graft onto each limb of a different variety. If this would work, I would raise my 4 small persimmon trees until the year that I can use scion wood from each to in-graft into the Meader. I look forward to hearing your views on this - if you can, please review the ideas that I mentioned above. Thanks, Steve What if 4 bare-root nursery-grafted saplings of the same height (less then 1" diameter) were wrapped flushed/tightly together with tape [so that there is no room in between each other were planting in the ground]? They would be wrapped around the base, midway up from ground level, and a third tape wrap at the top. Since they are young, wouldn't they have thin-enough bark exteriors that they would form a single trunk as they expand? I feel strongly about doing this... I don't want to make a mistake and cause the 4 to rot, instead of fusing, however. I've seen a wiki link that showed 4 trees of 4 cores growing next to each other showing that their 4 cores migrated to the center - cross-section/fire wood.

I don't believe these two species are compatible. A. rubrum is in the Rubra section while A. platanoides is in the Platanoidea section. If I'm not mistaken, it is rare for species in different sections to be compatible (although there are a couple of species that are compatible with several, pentaphyllum and pseudoplatanus I think). Species in the same section are sometimes grafted together, as they are more likely compatable. However, every tree within it's species has slightly different DNA, and the two trees you are referring to could have just enough genetic resemblance to mend.