Persimmon

Family

Ebenaceae

Habit

Tree

Height

12 m

Spread

7 m

Growth

slow

Lifespan

80 years

First yield

after 6 years

Full yield

after 25–50 years

Productive years

300–600 years

Hardiness

zone 8–10

Shade tolerance

light shade

Soil

Sand, Silt, Loam

Soil moisture

dry – very moist

pH

5.6 – 7.6

Times apply to the northern hemisphere in a temperate climate and shift with altitude and cultivar.

Edible: The round to oval orange fruit can weigh up to 500 grams and tastes sweet and fruity, though the flavour is hard to compare with other fruit. Ripeness is decisive: unripe fruit is full of tannins and tastes furry and astringent, an impression that disappears only at full maturity. Classic persimmon cultivars are therefore eaten only once the flesh has turned jelly-soft, while the selections sold as sharon fruit are low in tannin and can be eaten firm like an apple. They ripen on at room temperature, faster if apples share the bowl. The fruit is used fresh, as a purée in desserts and baking, dried in the East Asian manner, and made into jam. Most fruit sold commercially is seedless.

Other uses: The persimmon belongs to the ebony family, and the wood shows it: hard, heavy and tough, good to turn and long valued for tool handles, inlay work and golf club heads. In Japan the tree has produced a use line of its own: the juice of unripe, extremely tannic fruit yields kakishibu, a fermented liquid traditionally used to treat and brown wood, paper, fishing nets and textiles — the result is water-repellent and durable. For a Central European garden the ornamental value counts most: after leaf fall the tree stands for weeks hung with orange-red fruit on bare wood, preceded by strong autumn colour.

In Central Europe the persimmon is a marginal crop. It is distinctly frost-sensitive and in cold winters dies back so far that it sets no fruit the following year — only in particularly warm situations does enough wood survive. Here it scarcely reaches two metres, against ten in its homeland, and the fruit ripens fully only after long warm summers. It needs a position in full sun, sheltered from wind and exposure, with additional winter protection against cold wind and winter sun. In most regions container growing with frost-free overwintering is the safer route, particularly while breeders work on hardier cultivars. Pollination is unnecessary: the species is prone to parthenocarpy and sets seedless fruit unaided.

Persimmons can be raised from the pips where bought fruit contains any — most commercial fruit is seedless. The seed germinates after a cold period, but seedlings do not come true and take many years to bear, so in practice they serve mainly as rootstocks. Named cultivars are grafted, usually in late winter, with the related date-plum also used as a hardier rootstock. Cuttings root poorly. For the home garden, buying a grafted plant of a cultivar suited to the local climate is the only dependable route.

For Central European wildlife the persimmon matters little. Its yellow flowers, some two and a half centimetres across, are visited by bees, but the species does not depend on pollination and sets its fruit parthenocarpically, so insect visits are irrelevant to the crop. As an East Asian cultivated plant it has attracted no caterpillars here, and in the container culture that is usual its habitat value disappears altogether. In its growing regions, by contrast, the late-ripening fruit hanging long on bare branches is important winter food for birds and mammals — in East Asia the sight of a leafless, fruit-laden persimmon with birds feeding belongs to late autumn.

Special characteristics: parthenocarpic seedless fruit without a pollinating cultivar and without pollinators; drops its leaves while the orange fruit still hangs fruit display into December, high ornamental value even where the crop is uncertain; hardy to about -15°C depending on age+rootstock in Central Europe only in wine-growing sites or a container; needs high summer heat+late autumn frost to ripen; choose hardier cultivars and protect young plants consistently for the first years; unripe fruit strongly astringent (tannins) wait for it to ripen;

East Asia: China, Japan, Korea. It has been cultivated in China for more than two thousand years; from there it reached Japan and Korea, which alongside China remain the main producing countries. It arrived in Europe in the nineteenth century and found suitable conditions in the Mediterranean — Italy and Spain are the largest European growers. Further significant areas lie in Israel, Brazil and California. In Central Europe the species is not widespread: it thrives only in distinctly warm situations such as the Upper Rhine or wine-growing climates, and stays well below its potential size there. It does not naturalise here.

A genuine wild population of the persimmon can no longer be identified — it has been cultivated in China for over two thousand years, and the occurrences in mixed deciduous woodland and on mountain slopes of central and eastern China are largely regarded as escaped cultivated forms. The climate of those source areas describes its needs well: warm, humid summers, a long mild autumn in which the fruit can ripen, and a distinct winter rest without deep bare frost. In Central Europe it finds such conditions only in wine-growing districts and urban climates: sheltered, sunny, screened from cold easterly winds, on deep free-draining soil without waterlogging. Wood hardiness of about minus 15 degrees is rarely the limiting factor; more often the crop fails to early autumn frosts that arrive before ripening.