I have fond memories of persimmon trees growing by Lake Como, bare branched but laden with fat tomato-like fruits, glowing in the winter sun, and then going on to a lakeside restaurant and eating them with a spoon, opened and sloshed with whiskey.

I recently spotted one again, advertised in a catalogue and, maybe foolishly, seduced by dreams of warmer winters, I planted one in my orchard. I was encouraged by Paolo Arrigo, owner of Franchi Seeds of Italy, who reassured me that winters on the Italian lakes were probably colder than here, so I bought a tree from his website: seedsofitaly.co.uk.

In The Fruit Tree Handbook, Ben Pike says that persimmons, pomegranates, olives and loquats will all soon be worthy of speculative planting in southern areas and provide occasional worthwhile crops. “These fruit trees are all frost-hardy, but suffer from winter rainfall, particularly in western areas.”

A persimmon tree has gorgeous foliage as well as fruit Credit: Moment Open/GAP Photos

The persimmon (Diospyros kaki) is an ancient Chinese tree that was chosen as the tree of peace by the UN because it was the sole plant survivor of the Nagasaki atom bomb. It can live for more than 50 years, needs little maintenance and is hardy: able to survive four months at sub-zero temperatures, as well as thriving in subtropical climates, and able to adapt to clay, acid or alkaline soils.

So surely it could take anything a Kentish winter could throw at it? And it has. My small, self-fertile tree 'Fuyu’ looks happy; its leaves are green and glossy and just beginning to turn autumnal orange, but at just six feet tall it’ll be a while before it fruits – seven years after planting is the norm.

I’m promised small, creamy flowers in June, then the fruits need to be left on the tree to ripen bright orangey-red through October and November. They are brought inside to ripen to a jelly, unlike close relation the smaller supermarket sharon fruit, which can be eaten when hard. Apparently the big, sweet fruits (diospyros means “food of the gods”) are rich in vitamins and minerals, and full of fibre: beware diuretic and laxative side effects.

Siegerrebe grapes growing in Newent, Gloucestershire Credit: Alamy

Exotic tastes I asked my fruit guru Bob Flowerdew whether he had ever grown persimmons – he seems to try anything once in his garden or in his polytunnel within a polytunnel. He had, but then lost it one bleak Norfolk winter, and recommended a windbreak for protection during early years. Even so, he said, they were so beautiful, especially when carrying a full crop, that they were well worth a go.

He told me the taste of the original, completely hardy Asian varieties were often “mouth-puckering, bottom-clenching sour” (Mark Diacono describes them as “usually like a tennis ball”). So, as ever, the best-tasting varieties are the more difficult to grow, the easier and hardier American D. virginiana types taste astringent at best.

For the best-flavoured exotic fruit, Bob recommended I should try Physalis peruviana, the Cape gooseberry, and Psidium cattleianum, the strawberry guava, which both crop in winter when home-grown fresh fruit is at a premium. He also recommended 'Siegerrebe’, a reliable, early red grape with “a divinely sweet muscat flavour”.

Cape gooseberry Credit: Alamy

I went to my well-thumbed copy of Bob Flowerdew’s Complete Fruit Book for more information. The Cape gooseberry has yellow fruits enclosed in papery husks like Chinese lanterns and likes a rich soil and a nice, big root run. The strawberry guava grows reddish-purple plum-sized fruit that taste good straight off the tree, and of course make good jelly.

It does well in pots that can then be brought under cover during cold winters. Under glass, Bob told me, his most valuable reliably productive winter-cropping fruit was a Meyer lemon, closely followed by a satsuma. Grown in large pots, his citrus trees spend the summer outside in the garden.

Branching out Bob believes we should all grow more fruit. “Fruit is wrongly considered a luxury, when it’s greener, more tasty and less work than vegetables. It is perennial: you plant it well and it should outlive you. “And fruit is just so beneficial to wildlife in blossom, fruit and habitat, especially when we don’t protect it [e.g. cover with fleece against pests].”

How to grow persimmons