tydiggy: Congratulations! You are the proud parent of a girl flower. In most traditional Papaya varieties, this means that the entire plant is a girl. Girl flowers are usually larger, and grow plastered up against the stem, while the fellas are a bit smaller and grow on long stalks. Unless you can arrange for an immaculate conception, you will need to buy a boy plant, or otherwise obtain pollination from male blossoms. My experience is only from growing traditional papaya varieties in the islands of Micronesia some years ago. It may be that science has discovered a way to get around this pollination requirement by genetic engineering, and that male blossoms will suddenly begin to appear on your plant. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Hi Tina, Papayas are tropical fruits, I live in FL but I have mine planted outside year round...We had one day of freezing temps last year(Jan), it got to around 27-29 degrees for a few hours, all the leaves and papayas died and the top of the branches rotted and I ended up cutting off all the dead leaves and branch to remove all the rot. Appx. 3-4 months later a few new branches grew back and now(9 months later) its full of papayas again. Since your's is in a container, I would definitely bring them in when the temp. goes below 39 degrees just to be on the safe side. Container plants probably aren't as forgiving as the ones planted in the ground. Also this tree was at least over a year old when it froze, so the tree was a little more established? That's just my own experience with them, I'm not an expert. Hope that helps? Good Luck with yours!

They are entirely different plants. I didn't know that papayas were called pawpaws either. It is probably a case where someone saw a papaya and it reminded them of a pawpaw. It's like how a rose apple isn't really an apple. The kind of fruit you get in the grocery store is a papaya (apparently also known by some as a pawpaw.) It is tropical. There are several varieties. The there are several closely related species of true pawpaws. Some of them tolerate more heat or cold than others. The genus is Asimina. The native Florida pawpaw seem to be difficult to locate commercially.

Hello stanofh, Sorry for late reply...never got notice from email about follow up question. In past three years, coldest I can recall is maybe upper 30s/low 40s at nights during winter (but those are extreme cold spells that last for just few days...normally winter nights are upper 40's/low 50s). Strange thing is last year there was only one harvest of the hanging papayas in summer of around 12 fruits...it was surprise just to see fruit after nothing for 3 years. This year we were able to harvest around 20 fruits in spring and I thought that was it...butt now in fall there is another batch of 25+ fruits. Tree top is now probably reaching 12 foot tall, compared to last year when it was probably 7 or 8 foot tall. We don't use fertilizer or any plant food...the only difference in last year versus previous three years is actually less watering. Mother in law owns farm in thailand...she said to only water tree 2 or 3 times a week.