I planted this tree in 1991. It's an American persimmon (Ruby), which is obviously well-adapted to our spot. I also planted several varieties of Oriental persimmons. The trees grew OK, but they broke dormancy way too early. After several years of being frozen back every spring, the trees gave up and died. Unripe persimmons are famous for their pucker factor, but ours are wonderful if allowed to fully ripen, which means waiting for them to fall from the tree. Crops are variable, but some years we collect hundreds of fruits, most of which we eat on the spot.
After I cut down the large willow trees next to the house (the brittle horizontal limbs had grown heavy enough to crush the roof), I decided to replace them with persimmon trees. The ones I had planted in the orchard grew rapidly, yet matured to a fairly manageable size. The fruits are an extra bonus. In 2006 I planted 5 persimmon trees in front of the house. They have grown much more slowly than the ones in the orchard -- after 5 growing seasons, the biggest one is not quite 6 feet tall. I think it's the difference in soil type -- the orchard is a combination of sandbar sand and arroyo dirt, whereas the house is surrounded by a motley collection of miscellaneous fill I scrounged from wherever dirt was available at the time.
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