Can I grow pawpaw where I live?
Pawpaw is hardy across a wide stretch of the country, but whether it ripens fruit comes down to your USDA pawpaw hardiness zone. Enter your ZIP to find your zone and a straight answer to "can I grow pawpaw" where you are, plus the varieties that suit your zone and a nursery in your state.
Enter your ZIP above to see whether pawpaw grows in your area, which varieties to plant, and where to buy a tree.
Hardiness zones from the 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, by the PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University (prism.oregonstate.edu/phzm). This is not the official USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. ZIP-to-state data from GeoNames (www.geonames.org), CC BY 4.0.
Where pawpaw grows
Pawpaw grows and fruits reliably in USDA hardiness zones 5 to 8. It is marginal in zone 4, the cold, short-season cusp of its range, where only the earliest-ripening varieties finish before frost, and in zone 9, where a mild winter often fails to deliver the roughly 400 chill hours pawpaw needs to set fruit. Zones 3 and 10 are outside its fruiting range. Wherever you are, pawpaw needs at least two genetically distinct trees to fruit, because a single tree cannot pollinate itself.
Not sure of your zone? Look it up on the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, then browse pawpaw varieties to pick ones suited to it, and check the season tracker for when fruit ripens in your region.
What you need to grow pawpaws
The seedling-survival kit growers converge on: 50 percent shade cloth over a simple frame (or a vented tree tube, which shades and guards in one step) for the first two summers, and a deep pot if you are starting from seed.
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Tall tree pots
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