That sucks. My biggest complaint with fruit trees is the time they take to bear fruit. I wouldn't care if they only bore just a little, much better then getting nothing. I'm interested in seeing, as long as the spring weather cooperates, if my 2 year old peaches have any flowers.

I think North Star sour cherries bear fruit about the earliest, from what i can gather.

Hi Ray,

Same thing here with my Craigs. It took 4 years for my Bings to produce anything.

The number one lesson to learn from growing fruit trees and gardens is patience and faith.

Most fruit trees will bloom 3-5 years after planting, some take longer, some will produce earlier.

I've never been able to really distinguish whether the buds on a cherry tree are for blossoms or fruit. When the tree blooms, the blossoms will come out surrounded by the leaves for protection until they open, so unless you can tell leaf buds from blossom/leaf buds, you just have to wait for them to start growing and see what comes out. Someone with more experience and observation may have a better answer, though.

Hopefully this will be your year.

As for me, I just noticed my first flower bloom on my Stella Cherry Tree. This year is its 5th year, and I told myself if I didnt get any blooms it was coming down. So I am going to wait to see if I get more blooms and if it sets fruit, and then decide if I will keep it or bring it down.
So be a little patient... I know how frustating it could be.

In 3 years, my craig's crimson cherry tree has grown slower than my kid's turtle. Very disappointing. I wish I had planted a Royal Rainier. So I grafted a couple of RR on top.

This isn't encouraging. Sounds like the sour's fruit a lot younger then the sweets.

What kind of rootstock are you guys using? That should have some factor in when then things start bearing.

My Compact Stella bloomed for the first time last year in its 3rd leaf. It had a smattering of flowers, but most of them seemed to lack ovaries and there were only a few little tic tac sized cherry beginnings. Those all dropped.

This year looks poised for a much fuller bloom.

Mine is on Colt. The tree seems pretty vigorous for a genetically "compact" on a supposedly slightly size controlling rootstock. It has grown the fastest of all apple, fig, pawpaw, plum, quince and mulberry trees I've planted.

The trunk is probably 4" diameter or more.

I don't have a pollinator, but it is self-fertile. I've budded a Compact Lambert in a couple of places, but I don't know if its pollen will help since Lambert is a parent of Stella.

>When the tree blooms, the blossoms will come out surrounded by the leaves for protection until they openInteresting. Well, there may be some hope yet, as the buds are juuust beginning to open.

>In 3 years, my craig's crimson cherry tree has grown slower than my kid's turtle.Lol. Well, my Craig's Crimson has certainly grown quite vigorously over the last three years. I keep cutting it waaay back to control its height. But despite its growth, my fruit bowl remains empty. :(

>What kind of rootstock are you guys using?Like Murky, I believe I'm on Colt rootstock. Despite its "dwarf" label, my tree still reaches for the sky.

Thanks for all the input. Misery certainly loves company, so all your tales of "Chumped in Cherryland" take a bit of the sting out. ;)

-Ray

I have a Craig's Crimson Cherry that I bought from a DWN retail nursery. For the sake of curiosity, I planted it in a plastic "tub" container, that's about 15 gallon size. It bore fruits the first year. I'll have to check what rootstock it is, sometimes the tag for the rootstock is lost. Anyway, for the past three years, it has grown just a foot, but bears fruits every year. The tree remained small, but it has now 5 other cherries with it, all the new grafts blooming now. It has Self-Fertile Bing, Black Tartarian, Stella, Lambert, Yellow Spanish. I'll keep it potted as long as I can keep it alive. It is just 6 ft tall todate.

Craig's Crimson has softer skin, smaller pit, sweeter flesh and darker colored flesh and skin compared to others. The main issue that came up last year is that the craig's crimson has been hit with leaf spot disease while the other grafted branches on the same tree, not a single blemish. So I would say it is susceptible to leaf diseases in my yard.

I've treated it with tea tree oil, and I am waiting for the results. So how do you treat cherry leaf spot diseases?

In my opinion, Colt is a lousy rootstock and I don't touch it. Under the best circumstances it is supposed to dwarf 70% to 80% of Mazzard (the standard rootstock). Unpruned, Mazzard can grow to 30 feet. You can do the math, but as you can tell, even at 70% of Mazzard, I think that is larger than what people would think is a dwarf. Further, tests have shown under California conditions Colt may not dwarf at all. I am not a big fan of any of the dwarfing rootstocks anyway, at least under my growing conditions.

Be patient with your cherry tree. It make take several years to produce fruit. Some trees also produce faster than others. I can take you through a walk in my orchard and you can find a few three to four year old trees that have many blossoms on them. You will also find some 5 year old trees with almost no blossoms on them.

What about Gisela 5 or Krmsyk 5 or others?

I see Burnt Ridge ships cherries on Colt/but Raintree ships mostly on Gisela 5. I'm guessing Gurneys and others come on Mazzard?

Yeah, I hear you guys. My Surefire sour cherry (possibly on Mazzard rootstock) also is in it's third year and this year looks bad for fruit too. The other thing is it does not appear to grow much in size either. Just put's out healthy leaves every spring and stays put.
I read that it is a function of the rootstock and pruning. Dwarfing rootstocks are precocious and bear earlier. I wish I had mine on Gisela 5, that bears year 3, but this one I read you have to wait till year 4-7. But, when I wanted to buy in 2005, I was pretty late in the season and the cherries were mostly sold out, so I had to settle for what I could get late in the season.
Also, overpruning can make the tree put out a lot of leaves, but delay fruit-bearing.

>and took a hammer handle and beat the begeezus out of their trunksApplenut, what does beatin' the tree trunks do? I've never heard of such a thing, except for smashing stem cuttings to get them to bloom indoors.

That must be it -- I've been too nice to my trees! :D

-Ray

Ray:

Beating the trunks stresses the tree and makes it think it's going to die (which it will if it doesn't start giving me some fruit!) The tree's reaction is to fruit, as this is how it propagates itself.

I've heard several variations of how to stress a tree; cutting a slit through the bark all the way around the tree, taking out a 1/4" ring of bark all the way around except for a 1" piece, cutting out a ring of bark and flipping it upside down and taping it back in place.

But I think beating the trunk still feels the best :)

Applenut

NEWS FLASH!!!

I just went out and discovered 12, count 'em, 12 flower buds poppin' up on my cherry tree! Ok, not enough to make even a single slice o' pie, but still, I just may git me a handful of cherries this season!! Yipeee!

I've never seen these kind of buds before. Instead of emerging snug from the branches, these buds are on tiny little stems, almost like teeny lollipops, two or three in a bunch. I am so stoked!

Applenut, I think my tree spotted the hammer handle in my hand and knew what I was up to, and therefore brought forth the buds. ;)

-Ray

I had a dream last night that my trees were flowering (peaches) and snow was still on the ground, with more in the forecast.

This can't be a good sign!

I have 5 sweet cherry trees on Gisela 5. These trees grow *very* vigorously. I have managed to keep them down to 6-8 feet only by aggressive summer and dormant pruning. The dwarfing ability of this rootstock is not particularly high in my opinion. Nor is any other cherry rootstock in my limited experience. Consider, though, that cherries grow like gangbusters here in the PNW. (yet with only marginal yields)

I have a 25 years old BING cherry tree, used to have a lot
of flowers but no fruits. 3 seasons ago, I started to graft
BING with Royal Ann. Last season I grafted Royal Ann again,
and in the same season I started to see fruits on Bing with
two kind of fruits, Bing and Rainier. I did it again with
grafting on this tree. This is the third season the Bing
cherry grows a lot of fruits, big is size of cherry.