Pomegranate Factoids

Our pomegranate tree this morning.

Since we’ve had a few pomegrante questions coming in in the past week (it’s the tail end of harvest time) I thought I’d provide a link to more information on growing pomegranates than you’ll ever need to know courtesy of UC Davis.

If you live in a hot, dry climate that doesn’t freeze much you should get yourself a pomegranate tree. They’ll grow in more humid climates but may not produce much fruit. Ours took five years, from planting as a bare root tree, to get theย  modest crop you see in the picture.

It’s one of my favorite trees–delicious fruit, a red flowers in the spring and a gorgeous display of yellow leaves in the fall–what more could you ask for?

If you’ve been successful growing pomegranates outside of California (and worldwide) leave a comment letting us know where you live. I’m curious about the range of this tree.

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36 Comments

  1. There are pomegranate trees available that are hardy down to at least zone 6. I’ve heard there are zone 5 pomegranate trees but I have yet to find them. I plan on adding a couple of pomegranates to my homestead this Winter.

  2. i’ve got 4 pomegranate trees here in L.A….. squirrels take almost all the fruit….until i started building chickenwire fortresses (fortri ?) around each cluster of fruit that i had the time time to do so.
    Next year i think i have to erect chickenwire cages around each individual tree. How elegant and attractive !
    Fackers !

  3. My pomegranate in Oklahoma (zone 7) is doing just fine ๐Ÿ˜‰

    It’s not growing as fast as the one I had when I lived in southern California, but it doesn’t seem to mind the cold and drought much. I only planted it two seasons ago so it hasn’t put out any fruit yet but it seems quite healthy and happy.

    • Pat, where in Oklahoma are you? I am in Tulsa and have had 3 Russian Pomegranate trees die over the past 3 years during the winter. I was planning on giving up. Do you have your tree in the ground?

  4. I’ve seen some in urban gardens (both regular fruiting & smaller ornamental types) here in Istanbul and also throughout the Marmara region, down to the Aegean and the Mediterranean coast. I’d say it’s a regular for our climate along with olives and figs.

  5. Yup, effortless crop here in Long Beach. And I practice active squirrel population control (ground squirrels only, not tree squirrels, which have an actual hunting season).

  6. The are quite a few pomegranates growing in yards here in Bisbee, Arizona (USDA Zone 8b, Sunset Zone 10), but the one that amazes me is a volunteer growing on tailings from the copper mine. That’s one tough plant.

  7. I have a pomegranate that has been productive in years past. I’m in Albuquerque, Zone 7-a. The -10 or -15 F freeze we had in 2010 did a number on it, but it’s coming back. I have two fruits this year, and it is suckering like mad from the roots. It should provide a nice screen from my neighbors, so I’m letting the suckers grow.

  8. Riverside Ca is the perfect pomegranate climate. We had one when I was a kid, and it’s one of my best childhood memories. We used to bust them open on the sidewalk. My great grandmother had a row of them along an irrigation ditch in Yuma Arizona as a child in the 30’s . She loved eating them, but not peeling them! My Grandfather had them all along his yard in sandy Las Vegas soil, where they never got watered, and produced, albeit small, not so juicy fruit, but with good flavor.

  9. Paphos, Cyprus. They’re a staple tree here and our crop (about 15 trees counting in-laws) is just beginning to come in. We will have fruit for about 2 months, and this year I am juicing and freezing a lot of it. A friend has a commercial crop of an Israeli variety that produces very deep red fruits — ours are pinkish-red — that keeps cropping ’til Christmas.

  10. I’m in the hill country in central Texas. After my grandmother passed my wife and I moved into her house. She had a pomegranate tree in the back planted in a shady area that has pushed its way up to the light. Since we moved in two years ago we’ve had two great harvests, the second one double the first. I give it a good watering once a month.

  11. I am officially swooning with jealousy up here in Montana from looking at that photo. Why do so many of my favorite fruits have to be so warm-weathered?!

    • One catch is that our chill hours in Southern California are declining. So some things we used to be able to grow we can’t anymore. Pomegranates have very low chill requirements, thankfully.

  12. I really love pomegranates, was glad to see them return to the grocery stores. I think you can grow pomegranates anywhere that does not have a real hard freeze, and if you are struggling I find they do well in containers.

  13. My Mom gave me a sapling 7 years ago she had planted from the seed of one she ate that was bought at the grocery store. It is producing since year 5 only most the flowers will blow away. we generally get 2-4 poms and that is it so far but we never water it or pay any attention to it. I’ll try to be more attentive maybe I’ll see more fruit.

  14. They grow very well here in El Paso, Texas. We had a huge tree that gave us more pomegranates than we could possibly use every year. It froze two years ago but the root system survived and it sent up shoots the following spring. We’ve yet to get any fruit from these babies.

  15. My grandpa stuck one in the ground years ago. It was in a HEAVILY shaded area underneath a large oak and very close to a building. It has grown up above the building and produces about 50 good sized pomegranates each year now. Not sure how old it is…at least 15 years.

    I’m northwest of San Antonio, Texas.

  16. They seem to grow well anywhere in Hawaii. I live in Kihei where it’s hot and dry most of the year and we have no chill hours. It only took 2 years for my bare root poms to produce their first crops of fruit.

    • Please let us know what variety you have planted in Hawaii. I have been looking for a no-chill fruit producing pomegranate!

  17. Hello folks,

    I have four trees here in Uganda, East Africa. They are 2 years old and doing just fine. No fertilizers and no irrigation. Fantastic trees.

  18. I need to know what the root system is for pomagranate trees. I have a very old prolific tree. I am in Northern CAlif. The utility co, here wants to remove it. I am very unsure of the need and upset to lose it. Is it a non evasive shallow root system?

    Hope to hear from you soon. tiem is very important to this tree. Thank you

  19. I have two Wonderful variety pomegranate trees – one has produced and one hasn’t. I live in Slidell, Louisiana.

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