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Well well! My Sumbar tree (sourced from Planting Justice in Oakland, planted in 2022), flowered this spring amd set fruit!

Unfortunately, we moved from pur house in July. I passed by in September and there were over a half dozen beautiful heavy fruits on the tree, but I had no camera.

I had the chance to visit the tree in early January. The current inhabitants never picked the fruit! There were some mostly-rotted fully ripened fruits on the ground, though... I am so happy and also sad about the whole affair. I took some cuttings, so I hope they root out! Fingers crossed!

I find that pomegranate cuttings are usually easy to root. If you have at least 3 cuttings, then worst case scenario would be that 1 would root successfully out of 3.

Well - update time! I picked one of the pomegranates on this Sumbar variety tree, in Seattle. We had a very cool start to the year; but the National Phenology Network shows accumulated GDD is almost up to normal for this time of year (2,011 in 2024 vs 2,076 in 30 year average).

Anyhow, the fruit was underripe, but showing great promise of scent and flavor. However, it was a bit bland and dry. Still, my extended family was blown away!

I have to say, I had another pomegranate from my Sumbar tree, and it was also dry and fairly flavorless. I don't know if that's an attribute of the variety, the youth of the tree, or the fact of the dryness all year long. The tree seemed very healthy and thriving, though.

'Sumbar' fruit are supposed to be juicy, and are supposed to have very soft tender seeds.