Propogating Paw Paw Trees

  Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Paw paws grow as small trees in open woodlands, you can find them in the Congaree National Park, with leaves that are fairly boring but big, up to a foot long. The flowers are a peculiar color - reddish brown, kind of like raw roast beef, and that’s a clue as to what pollinates paw paws – flies that are carrion or flesh feeders – like those shiny green flies that help compost what your neighbor’s dog might leave in the yard. These flies are not very efficient and some growers suggest putting road kill carcasses in the trees to help attract these insects – but then you might have a buzzard come and take away your road kill! At any rate, many back yard pawpaw enthusiasts resort to hand fertilizing the flowers with pollen from another pawpaw with a different genotype – collected from a completely different stand.