Thanks larry_gene, yes, it's Angel Red, sorry. It's against a sunny wall but I'll just have to wait and see if it will produce.

It looks like it froze but we had a soft winter. Are you in a cold area or frost pocket? In the Seattle orbit what you see is specimens in suitable spots like south-facing walls growing and even fruiting until there is a 30 year winter, like the one in 1990 - which really seemed to thin the ranks of these here.

I've seen the idea that they tend to be hardy to about 15F somewhere but there is a presumably long-established pomegranate at the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland, where surely there on the flat well away from Puget Sound it gets colder than it does up here. The Klager plant does look like it has gone down in the past.

I don't know if I'm in a cold area. I live on a hill on West Valley HWy in Auburn. I'm thinking of digging it up and put in a pot, perhaps it would have a better chance since I can move it into the garage during winter. The AR is supposed to be for zone 7-11, but that doesn't mean it will produce.

Yes, you will probably be in a foothill climate type situation compared to closer in - you might want to look at Sunset Publishing Sunset Climate Zone maps to see if they have you in Sunset 4 instead of 5. These two Sunset Climate Zones correspond pretty well to USDA 8a and 8b Hardiness Zones respectively in how they are mapped. One convention is that at this latitude if you can see the Sound from your place you are in the banana belt and if you are out there some ways you are in a "cold" garden - there is even a collection just east of Lynnwood that supposedly gets down to something like 0F during cold winters. To some extent there is a pattern of the lows dropping by 1 degree F for each mile you go east - but this is all variable, one enthusiast garden that was on a hill north of Kent - yet apparently didn't get any colder than Seattle - featured Seattle style plants like Chilean fire tree and eucalyptus.

Apart from influence of differing air drainage patterns there is also the effect of inaccurate thermometers on what conditions gardeners report for different locations!

In this region pomegranate will tend to be a banana belt item, not coming through single digit winters very well.

Good info, thanks. I don't think I'm in a single digit zone, so far the coldest was 14F if I remember correctly. But you're right I'm definitely not in the banana belt. Oh well, I just had to try:-)

The last real killer winter was 1990, if you have been there for some years and have not seen it below 14F it should not be that bad there.

Except your pomegranate really does look like it froze. But it is not certain that was the problem.

I think you're right. The old branches have buds but they don't develop further, probably got frozen.

Yep. Seems kind of unexpected if it really didn't get below 14F - but maybe there is a hardiness range and some cultivars are more tender than others. Also you would have to be operating (and keeping up with) a maximum-minimum thermometer to know it didn't get real cold at some point when you weren't looking - all it takes is a few hours below a plant's ingrained genetic tolerance for it to get zapped.

That's a good point, thanks. I have to investigate further.