Nut & Fruit Trees

Pecan, hickory, walnut, pawpaw, persimmon and other native food trees.

Sixty-nine native food plants fall into three groups. Northern pecan, black walnut, eleven hickories and American beech are among those for nuts. Pawpaw, American persimmon, red mulberry, the plums, the hawthorns and the crabapples are among those for fruit, and American hazelnut and beaked hazelnut make both a hedge and a crop. Twenty-nine of the sixty-nine need a second tree, or a male among the females, before they bear, and twenty-five more bear better with one nearby. Each page says which, and the pollination planner counts it for you. American hazelnut bears at 2 to 3 years and persimmon at 4 to 9. Sizes run from a knee-high pawpaw to pecans and hickories of 100 feet and more, hardy from USDA zone 2 to zone 10 depending on the species. All are sold as saplings, eighteen of them also as nuts and fifty-one as seed to sow. The Native Edible Orchard bundle puts pawpaw, persimmon, plum, pecan and hazelnut together with black chokeberry. Native fruit and nut trees to grow and eat says when each starts to bear and whether to plant a seedling or a grafted tree.