I am in zone 6B (Maryland)and don't do any winter protection to my persimmons. Never saw any issues (knock on wood) with hardiness or starting-out too soon so far. Persimmons always wake up late for me, much later than other friuit trees. My experience is relatively short, my oldest persimmon trees are only 8 year old. It could be that eventually there will be a harsh winter or weird spring weather that will do massive damage or kill them :(
I grow Ichi, Jiro, Izu, Hana Fuyu, Sheng, Chocolate and Coffee Cake. The last two are supossed to be more tender varieties and these are the youngest trees, just 2 year old, so I keep my fingers crossed.

Olga

Olga thanks for your thread.My experience with tree,s bought from nurseries like edible lanscaping and a few others in the past, have all died in my small orchard. It was untill i grafted sions onto my native ones. Tree,s i bought uses rootstock that came out way too soon in my area, sofar i am doing good, all my tree,s going to be tested again this winter/spring. I have added giombo to the group, which is a variety for zone 7 and higher, sofar Bansi,sayo,fuyu/russian beauty are fruiting. I have a combo tree russian on the bottom and sayo on top are loaded.I will have sions available from asian pears,plums( coe,schoolhouse, metz and a few others)also bansi asian persimmon.I like a couple more asian varieties not more( the better ones)no idea what!By the way,i let one rootstock grow from which the sion has died and this one has fruited already and the fruits look like miniature sayo,s, the size of a dime,maybe smaller. My natives growing here are large for a american,sweet and not pulpy(dry).

That's one heck of an idea Bob, I may try making a hoop of chicken wire and filling it with leaves, to protect some newly planted figs.

mr Ed,i do not think your fig tree,s need that much attension,but i have so much leaves in the fall and since i only use leaves around my fig tree,s and usely do not fertilize fig,s. My soil is rocky, very little dirt,but they do very well. I have hardy chicago,magnolia,desert king and a white fig that i do not its origin,but it is the sweetest of all of them. I usely cut them to the ground every 3 years so that they stay bushy. I have around a dozen or so of figs, probable more like 20 spread-out everywhere.Since fig roots are shallow the leaves come in handy in the summer,especialy with very litle rain.If you pile 16 inches of leaves in the fall, by summer it will be down to a couple inches.