I live in zone 8.Nacogdoches,Texas,will a Moringa come back in the spring after a cold winter?

I know all the banana trees always come back after a cold winter.Will a Moringa tree come back after a cold winter?

According to Spruce.com moringa trees are hardy to zones 10 and 11. Zone 8 is a jump. You would have to keep it in a greenhouse or beside a thermal mass (chancey).

john muckleroy jr wrote:I know all the banana trees always come back after a cold winter.Will a Moringa tree come back after a cold winter?

Hey John, I'm just south of ya outside of Lufkin. I started my moringa trees from a baker creek seed packet I think 5 years ago (maybe 4). To my recollection it was labeled "dwarf moringa". And to my surprise, 3 of mine come back every year with little to no care at all. They're in full sun getting cooked like the rest of my garden. They're around some other plants, some grass, and other young trees... with a little wood mulch around the base of em. This year has been their worst year with all these 100 degree days but they're still alive and my biggest one even put a few flowers on the top. My biggest two have made pods most years, but I haven't started any from the seed from them. They didn't make pods this  year. But nothing really made anything this year with this midsummer oven we've been in.

If for some reason you don't have luck with yours, I've split my trees by root division and given one to a friend who is also having success with his so I wouldn't mind doing the same for ya. I don't do anything with them other than munch on the leaves from time to time, feed some chickies and occasionally huff the flowers. I do find time to marvel at them when they're at their peak most years giving my garden shade, covered in drumsticks, flowers, and huge bumblers that seem to be attracted to them. They die back every year to the roots but the trees will remain standing til the next year if you don't chop em down. I lay the big trees from last years dead growth around my garden. They're a soft wood so in a years time they're pretty broken down. Moringa is a great tree. Anyone from zone 7 down should be trying to grow moringa in ground. Just my humble opinion.

TL;DR - YES, I think with a little love in the form of mulch, a Moringa tree will come back in zone 8.

Mine survive in 9. I'd agree that if it's established and protected it should come back.
Thombo, I'm glad to know your plants make the drumsticks even having died back! Mine don't die back, they want to get to tree size here, but I regularly lop them down to about waist high. I haven't gotten flowers or drumsticks yet, my plant is only maybe 3 years old though. if

Thombo Corley wrote:

john muckleroy jr wrote:I know all the banana trees always come back after a cold winter.Will a Moringa tree come back after a cold winter?

Hey John, I'm just south of ya outside of Lufkin. I started my moringa trees from a baker creek seed packet I think 5 years ago (maybe 4). To my recollection it was labeled "dwarf moringa". And to my surprise, 3 of mine come back every year with little to no care at all. They're in full sun getting cooked like the rest of my garden. They're around some other plants, some grass, and other young trees... with a little wood mulch around the base of em. This year has been their worst year with all these 100 degree days but they're still alive and my biggest one even put a few flowers on the top. My biggest two have made pods most years, but I haven't started any from the seed from them. They didn't make pods this  year. But nothing really made anything this year with this midsummer oven we've been in.

If for some reason you don't have luck with yours, I've split my trees by root division and given one to a friend who is also having success with his so I wouldn't mind doing the same for ya. I don't do anything with them other than munch on the leaves from time to time, feed some chickies and occasionally huff the flowers. I do find time to marvel at them when they're at their peak most years giving my garden shade, covered in drumsticks, flowers, and huge bumblers that seem to be attracted to them. They die back every year to the roots but the trees will remain standing til the next year if you don't chop em down. I lay the big trees from last years dead growth around my garden. They're a soft wood so in a years time they're pretty broken down. Moringa is a great tree. Anyone from zone 7 down should be trying to grow moringa in ground. Just my humble opinion.

TL;DR - YES, I think with a little love in the form of mulch, a Moringa tree will come back in zone 8.

That is great to know! I am a few hours SW of you guys, in Rockdale. I got some seeds from Baker Creek too, which I haven't planted yet (planning to in spring) I thought I would have to plant them as annuals or in large pots to bring inside. Good to know I can plant them out in the garden and probably have them come back. And anything to give some shade in the heat of summer is a good thing!

Lila Stevens wrote:

That is great to know! I am a few hours SW of you guys, in Rockdale. I got some seeds from Baker Creek too, which I haven't planted yet (planning to in spring) I thought I would have to plant them as annuals or in large pots to bring inside. Good to know I can plant them out in the garden and probably have them come back. And anything to give some shade in the heat of summer is a good thing!

You should be good to go. I've been through Rockdale a couple times on the way to Austin. I did some growing up in Rockdale Co. Georgia. Always thought we took a wrong turn somewhere when we ended up in rockdale texas. My suggestion would be wait til the cool nights have passed and soak your seeds before planting. If you want better success, soak your seeds in microbes. Moringa grow fast in years where they get what they need, good spring rains and a drought-less summer. In Texas they will respond well to getting cut (coppiced) because we have a long growing season. And the best thing about them (other than being a nutrient rich plant that's durable and vigorous) is that they are one of the only things in my garden providing shade. I practice "companion planting" and "polyculture", or maybe what our ancestors would've called planting plants together... and I believe my moringa has helped one of my young plums along. It's my only plum still covered in leaves after all this drought and it's planted two feet away from my biggest moringa. My intuition is tellin me those roots are touching and they like it. But I'm not a soil biologist, scientist, or permaculture expert... I'm just a guy practicing observation in the southern backwoods.

To anyone else getting absolutely cooked this year in the deep south... My moringa trees and persian mulberry are outperforming everything else. We have barely gotten rain for 3 months, and my guess is we've been over 100 degrees 90% of those days. Do with that what you will. Any website claiming you can't grow moringa in the ground in zone 8 is lying to ya. Another reason to just do experiments and find out for yourself.

We have a Moringa farm where we grow Moringa commercially between Cuero and Victoria Texas. Sunny Huang of Moringa Garden is in the Bastrop Texas area and she sales Moringa Products and has a nursery.
  The reason I wanted to point these two locations out is that even those these locations are not that far apart distance wise, the micro-climate difference between the locations are significant because of the geography and we both have businesses based on the Moringa tree.  
Depending on the position of the Bermuda High, Southern Ridge, and the ENSO cycle for any given year our location close to the Texas coastline puts us in 9b. Bastrop will fluctuate between a 8b and 9a.  Because of the 8b to 9a possibility of a hard freeze killing Moringa down to the ground, Sunny imports almost all of her moringa from India to have a reliable source. Sunny has one of the greenest thumbs I have even seen.. and she does grow some Moringa herself.. but there is a reason she imports the majority of her Moringa... that 8b to 9a makes it too risky for her to make a business out of local grown Moringa.
Our farm in my opinion has the opposite problem. We rarely get freezes, but do get light frosts. So we do take action to winterize our Moringa trees as best we can. We can expect to lose some branches/ limbs to frost and light freezes but have not experienced any root kill from freezing where we are.  We have lost Moringa trees because of the extreme heat. Most people will tell you that Moringa trees are both heat and drought tolerant.. and I am here to tell you they are only to a certain point. Having visited Moringa tree farms in the Philippines where these trees thrive, I can tell you they do well in tropic and sub-tropic temperatures where the heat index does not exceed about 103'F.  In Cebu the last two years they had heat waves that reached 118'F and they experienced a lot of tree loss. Down here in South Texas this close to the coastline we regularly experience 105'F to 119'F heat indexes for more than 90 days out of the summer with very little rain. This combination of heat and humidity with low rainfall kills Moringa.  What ends up happening is that the leaf curls itself closed to avoid sun scorch and protect itself against evaporative water loss. When the leaves spend a majority of their time closed during the day time.. the tree stops growing. A young Moringa tree that cuts itself off like this, will eventually die.  Mature Moringa trees can usually survive our summer heat indexes without loss, but they also almost completely stop growing between late June and October.
 So my recommendation is that if you want to grow one or two Moringa trees for your own personal use/ enjoyment put them in containers that you upsize and repot every year. Protect them from hard freezes by bringing them in in the winter, and if you are south of Waco but east of I35 .. in the summer place the pots in sunny spots that get shade between 4:00pm and 7:00pm.  I would not recommend anyone attempt to grow large quantities of Moringa trees unless they can put them in a high tunnel controlled environment OR have a unique micro-climate like we do on our farm.. even then expect to have to do a lot of work to protect the tree from possible extremes from year to year.

Hi ya’ll. I live just outside of Pensacola, Fl in zone 8b. I’ve had Moringa in the ground for about 5 years and it always comes back for me in the spring. I’m sure if you mulch yours they’ll come back just fine.