Are commercial fruiting persimmons suitable for bonsai?

[Perrywinkle]

Hello everyone, I hope winter is treating you and your trees well. I have a Fuyu persimmon growing in my backyard that I planted about 6 years ago. It has never bore me fruit, though it’s sibling has given me some. So, I am thinking of making it into a bonsai.

It has nice taper, craggy bark and beautiful fall color. The only thing is the leaves are pretty large and the supposed fruit would be much too large for bonsai scale. I also believe it is grafted onto Virginia Persimmon, which might be of interest.

Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone had experience with this kind of persimmon? Do the leaves reduce well? And what time of year do you think collection is best done? Thank you.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Do search this site to find. Most Princess variety but others shown also. Can be great trees but mostly if willing to grow larger size tree.

 

[Shibui]

Fruiting persimmon also seem to have long internodes and a distinct lack of ramification as well as larger leaves. I have not tried but suspect it would be very difficult to get a good bonsai from these trees.

 

[Canada Bonsai]

@Perrywinkle in the search function, search "persimmon" and narrow it down to all posts by @Leo in N E Illinois

You will find a great amount of high quality information! I personally copy-pasted it all in a Word document because I know I will need it in the future lol

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

THanks for the vote of confidence @Canada Bonsai - but I'm afraid I'm more hat than cattle. (don't think I can live up to the reputation)

I do have some young seedlings, & up to 7 year old American persimmon from seed. Some young grafted kaki. Some young grafted American persimmon, and some princess persimmon seedlings. I did plant some American persimmon seedlings in the ground about 11 years ago, and in the ground they started fruiting at about 7 years in southern IL (more toward the middle of their ideal native range) The Chicago-Milwaukee area I live in is at the northern limit of their range.

I've seen photos of kaki as bonsai taken in Japan. They were probably from seed or air layers, most likely seed. They make a decent medium to larger scale bonsai. The photos seemed to be of 3 to 5 foot tall trees in pots, not little tiny trees. At the larger size they are more in proportion. Almost always displayed leafless.

Also, almost all persimmon are exhibited with fruit while leafless, except the Chinese princess persimmon, the one that is more tropical, I think it is Diospyros mollis which is displayed with leaves. The Japanese princess persimmon, Diospyros rhombifolia can be exhibited with leaves or without leaves, as the leaves are small too. All the other two, kaki & virginiana, are displayed leafless, either naturally leafless or leaves removed to show fruit better. Fruit ripens in autumn, so displaying leafless is usually in time for autumn leaf drop.

If you display when leafless, the issue of leaf size reduction is not as big a deal. In my experience, leaf size does come down, as ramification increases. But kaki and virginiana (American) do not ramify as easily as rhombifolia (princess persimmon). Smallest leaf I've gotten on D. virginiana is about 2 inches, which is not great, but not horrible.

@Owen Reich and Bjorn Bjornholm had a wonderful blog and video series they did from their apprenticeships in Japan, and maybe 3 or 4 entries featured persimmons in one way or another. If I can find links, I'll post but perhaps Owen might have the links to the series. Check Eisien's website, links might be there.

 

[Perrywinkle]

THanks for the vote of confidence @Canada Bonsai - but I'm afraid I'm more hat than cattle. (don't think I can live up to the reputation)

I do have some young seedlings, & up to 7 year old American persimmon from seed. Some young grafted kaki. Some young grafted American persimmon, and some princess persimmon seedlings. I did plant some American persimmon seedlings in the ground about 11 years ago, and in the ground they started fruiting at about 7 years in southern IL (more toward the middle of their ideal native range) The Chicago-Milwaukee area I live in is at the northern limit of their range.

I've seen photos of kaki as bonsai taken in Japan. They were probably from seed or air layers, most likely seed. They make a decent medium to larger scale bonsai. The photos seemed to be of 3 to 5 foot tall trees in pots, not little tiny trees. At the larger size they are more in proportion. Almost always displayed leafless.

Also, almost all persimmon are exhibited with fruit while leafless, except the Chinese princess persimmon, the one that is more tropical, I think it is Diospyros mollis which is displayed with leaves. The Japanese princess persimmon, Diospyros rhombifolia can be exhibited with leaves or without leaves, as the leaves are small too. All the other two, kaki & virginiana, are displayed leafless, either naturally leafless or leaves removed to show fruit better. Fruit ripens in autumn, so displaying leafless is usually in time for autumn leaf drop.

If you display when leafless, the issue of leaf size reduction is not as big a deal. In my experience, leaf size does come down, as ramification increases. But kaki and virginiana (American) do not ramify as easily as rhombifolia (princess persimmon). Smallest leaf I've gotten on D. virginiana is about 2 inches, which is not great, but not horrible.

@Owen Reich and Bjorn Bjornholm had a wonderful blog and video series they did from their apprenticeships in Japan, and maybe 3 or 4 entries featured persimmons in one way or another. If I can find links, I'll post but perhaps Owen might have the links to the series. Check Eisien's website, links might be there.

Thank you for your very detailed and thoughtful reply Leo. The information was useful, particularly on D. virginiana and Kaki ramification and how they are displayed. I currently have a bunch of American Persimmon seedlings and planted seeds, so I will have lots of material to work with soon. The fact that Kaki is almost always displayed as large and leafless bonsai makes me feel better about some of the perceived shortcomings it might have. I will probably dig it up this coming spring and see what happens.

 

[Owen Reich]

THanks for the vote of confidence @Canada Bonsai - but I'm afraid I'm more hat than cattle. (don't think I can live up to the reputation)

I do have some young seedlings, & up to 7 year old American persimmon from seed. Some young grafted kaki. Some young grafted American persimmon, and some princess persimmon seedlings. I did plant some American persimmon seedlings in the ground about 11 years ago, and in the ground they started fruiting at about 7 years in southern IL (more toward the middle of their ideal native range) The Chicago-Milwaukee area I live in is at the northern limit of their range.

I've seen photos of kaki as bonsai taken in Japan. They were probably from seed or air layers, most likely seed. They make a decent medium to larger scale bonsai. The photos seemed to be of 3 to 5 foot tall trees in pots, not little tiny trees. At the larger size they are more in proportion. Almost always displayed leafless.

Also, almost all persimmon are exhibited with fruit while leafless, except the Chinese princess persimmon, the one that is more tropical, I think it is Diospyros mollis which is displayed with leaves. The Japanese princess persimmon, Diospyros rhombifolia can be exhibited with leaves or without leaves, as the leaves are small too. All the other two, kaki & virginiana, are displayed leafless, either naturally leafless or leaves removed to show fruit better. Fruit ripens in autumn, so displaying leafless is usually in time for autumn leaf drop.

If you display when leafless, the issue of leaf size reduction is not as big a deal. In my experience, leaf size does come down, as ramification increases. But kaki and virginiana (American) do not ramify as easily as rhombifolia (princess persimmon). Smallest leaf I've gotten on D. virginiana is about 2 inches, which is not great, but not horrible.

@Owen Reich and Bjorn Bjornholm had a wonderful blog and video series they did from their apprenticeships in Japan, and maybe 3 or 4 entries featured persimmons in one way or another. If I can find links, I'll post but perhaps Owen might have the links to the series. Check Eisien's website, links might be there.

Don’t recall if Bjorn’s YouTube series covers Persimmons in detail; most of the info on this Genus has yet to be translated.

Fuyu aka Giant Fuyu has huge leaves and coarse branches. Suitable for larger bonsai imo.