Natural range of pawpaw trees. Note my native paw paw trees came from somewhere in East Texas along the Sabine River. Beaumont is just south of the range of them.
One of my big pawpaw trees in Beaumont,TX. When I lived in Beaumont I had 4 or 5 - 12 foot+ tall and 10+ year old trees all grown in full sun. I got more fruit than I could eat although I had to hand pollinate them. Root stock was East Texas native and I grafted many varieties onto them. Houston is at the southern most end of their natural range. Possums kept eating all the fruit as a ripe pawpaw odor travels thru the whole neighborhood. I couldn't catch and drown in my rain barrel enough possums although I tried! I got mad and pulled them up one spring I didn't get a single fruit just a few seeds they left behind on fruit that hadn't dropped. Fruit must fall from the tree to be edible. Pick them too early and they taste awful.
You will read that you can't dig up and transplant pawpaw suckers successfully and not in the winter at all. They sucker quite a lot. I dug up 5 or more clumps of suckers in the winter and every one lived and prospered. Thank goodness I didn't read I couldn't do it. The tree I dug them up from was in Orangefield.TX and 25 feet tall. few clumps of paw paw suckers. Several native rootstock pawpaws.
The peterson pawpaws from forrest keeling arrived, all six varieties. They were packed 2 per box in boxes made especially for their size of square pot. Did I mention I am very pleased with the order? They are very nice and 2 liter sized pot 5x5x6 inches which is way bigger than the ones I got last year. I haven't gotten any better or bigger pawpaws by mail order before even ones purchased directly from Peterson in West Virginia many years ago. I show them next to a 2 gallon native. The whips are 2-3 feet long and actually big enough for cutting bud wood. I have 2 root stock to graft. Forrest Keeling also offers a larger size for $32.50 each plus postage. I plan on leaving them in their square pots for a few weeks or months to rest from stress. Last year I got smaller ones and put them immediately in 2 gallon pots. Turned out my potting soil didn't drain good enough and I committed pawpawcide on all 3 and $90 down the drain.