Pawpaw, Paw Paw, Papaw, Poor Man's Banana, Michigan Banana 'Mason/WLW'

I bought a pair of bare root plants from Miller Nurseries in upstate New York some ten years ago. I planted them with relatively little p...Read Morerotection from our winter weather. But one plant was set back apparently by frost damage some years ago; the other survived intact and reached flowering maturity in 2005 (see my image). I expect that both plants will flower this season and that they will produce fruit, since this species requires two plants to polinate. Meanwhile the foliage has been spectacular and I recommend the tree for a privacy blind in the garden border. In our growing zone it apparently needs the protection of adjacent plant material to survive our winters. This is a good American native that deserves to be grown more widely in our gardens. And I am told that the fruit is edible, delicious, and healthful!

"Selected from the wild in Mason, OH, by Ernest J. Downing in 1938."