Hi everyone! I've followed this thread with growing interest, and finally took the next step by posting hete :) . I am a professional gardener, and my interests lie heavily on pomology and dendrology (yup, a tree hugger!). I have a vision to introduce cultivars of mulberries, american persimmons, paw paws, nuts, and cornelian cherries to my country of Finland. Now to many it would seem that being as far north as alaska might impose some challenges, but thanks to gulf stream, our southern end is beginning to be the equivalent of USDA 5b/6 ..but of course that's regarding only the low temperatures. At Köppen-Geiger climate we at the south are at Dfb , for those who use that. I'd like to talk about all potential plants, but let's focuse on paw paws...now we have of course insane amounts of light at the peak of the summer, will that help or hinder paw paws, I'm not sure. Last two summers have been wet and cold, and I suspect that no paw paws would have ripened. But then again, I remember summers with +30 Celsius (86 F) , and some winters that went as low as -30C (-22F) . Most of the time however we stay near the -20 C (-4F) at winter, so the low temperatures really are not an issue. However the growing degree days might be...and so I am especially interested in trying the absolutely most earliest cultivars! I really don't care about the size right now, I just want to PROVE to me and to others here that you can actually grow paw paw in the open and outside :D The excel sheet that someone posted is most excellent tool and I thank for that. Now to questions: -Do you have any special recommedations to try? -Should I also focus on growing seedlings ( I have four one year old seeldings, and 50 seeds in the fridge, all from Oikos) to find special case that grows well here? -Do you think that root stock will make a real difference? -When do you think is the best time to graft paw paw, and how thick the trunk should be before I try that? I thank everyone for any help bringing paw paws (and others) to my country :) -Janne

Thank you, roselee, for referencing this how-to in another post. I find the houzz' Help setup to be lacking. The answers may all be there, but finding one is like a scavenger hunt.

I just went out & looked and there is a nice little (several stems) green chunk about 4-6 inches tall. The big plant is mostly froze back. Tomorrow I will try to dig it. Roselee, do you have any suggestions on how to mail? I thought shake off some of the dirt, wrap in a wet paper towel, put in zip lock bag & then a small box. Maybe mail first class to get there fast. I will check out how to send a private message. Not real good at this as most of the time I even have trouble getting in on this site. Not at all user friendly like the old site at least for me. Chrholme, I will try to get through to you for your address or if you can, try to contact me that way.

Click on the profile, there should be a message tab on the top right of their page. If there isn't one, they have set their profile to not receive messages. In which case they need to go to their settings, click on advanced settings and check the boxes for people they are willing to receive messages from. Hope that helps! KC