I regret that baby paw paw plants do not have the same tenacity as baby mulberry plants. The roots are under engineered for going that gets tough. For those wanting to become paw paw people, I prefer 2 ways to begin instead of the common practice of having expensive baby plants with baby roots shipped in from a zillion miles away. One way is to visit mom and pop, small, independent nurseries and ask the owner if any of their wholesale nursery suppliers list potted paw paw seedlings for sale that are several feet tall. I would order some regardless whether they are unknown variety seedlings or not. BIGGER is BETTER and commonly cheaper than the (very small) super duper variety grafted plants. You can get the larger potted seedlings to start growing in a deep/wide raised bed of rich, organic soil that can later be widened further as the plant grows. If your soil is rocky/desert sand/clay/moon surface/inhospitable, think DEEP on the raised bed. When the paw paw tap root grows downward and collides with some kind of 'moon surface', it lacks the ability to drill-baby-drill, so lateral root growth will be the plant's focus. The seedlings can be cleft grafted later on the central leader to become whatever variety you want. The second way that I prefer is to order a bag of seeds from a known, choice variety and plant them in very deep pots filled with loose, organic soil mix from which they can later be gently removed and planted in the aforementioned deep raised bed. I would wait on the choice variety seedlings to mature to see what kind of fruit they end up producing. If not so special, cleft graft the central leader with what you want to try next. In summary, baby paw paw plants growing in laboratory conditions with 24/7 care by very experienced mass growers can be so healthy looking, but when they get kicked out of house and home and get resettled in a much less accommodating situation, many struggle big time, and many never make it.
