actually persimmons are just late ripening, the frost tale is just folklore. The frost actually hurts the fruits by destroying cell walls in the fruit but does remove some astringency. Where I'm at in SC most of the fruits ripen before the frost but some wild cultivars still have fruits on the limbs into november. If you are thinking about growing persimmons there are many american selections that do well in colder parts of the US and will ripen before the first frost. if you live in zone 7 or higher you can try your luck with an asian persimmon and you'll get much larger fruits, However they are prone to leafing out early and suffer from late frost damage some have been known to die because of late frosts. American persimmons leaf and flower later but require both male and female plants to get fruit and it can take upwards to 8 years from seed to tell what you got. there are 2 types of american persimmons diospyros virginiana L that grows wild anywhere north of KY and diospyros virginiana S which grows everywhere south of KY. The diospyros virginiana L produces larger persimmons hints the L and is what's used in most breeding work today. The diospyros virginiana S which is smaller hints the S, has a different chromosome count then L and allows growers to get seedless fruit if using a S male to pollinate a L female. Everyone should have a few persimmon trees if the space is available. native trees reach upwards to 40 ft or more if left unpruned, but the asians are much smaller typically not growing over 20ft and easily maintained to 12 or 14ft. I have some stratified diospyros virginiana S seeds in the fridge ready to be planted out if you'd like some but I'd suggest purchasing plants so you know what you get instead of going with seedlings. nuttrees.net, burntridge.com, raintree.com, groworganic.com, and ediblelandscaping.com are all trusted web based retailers that offer a great varitey of persimmons. I only grow seedlings for rootstocks for my cultivated plants to be grafted onto. persimmon are one of the hardest plant to propagate via grafts and won't root via cuttings or layering this is why they cost so much from retailers. for me success rates hover around 20- 30% and what don't take gets tried again next year. I hope this helps and If you decide you want to try growing from seed just let me know I'll be happy to send you some just cover the postage is all I ask or we can do a trade if you are interested.
