Is the tree still wrapped up? Northstar is really a pie cherry. When after you decide to return the tree please consider trading with me because I have pie cherries that compete with Northstar in quality. Yes they are 3/4 Northstar hybridized with mongolian ground cherry and are at least as dwarf, and yes mine are on their own roots. Mine are still small though.

Katy:

Northstar is a genetic dwarf sour cherry that will remain small no matter what rootstock it is on. Since it is impractical to grow it from seed because it might not come true, they have to graft it to something, and Mahaleb has good survivability and disease resistance as a rootstock.

I planted two Northstars from Miller's years ago, and they remained at about 10 feet for the rest of their natural lives, which turned out to be a little over 20 years. In your climate they might last longer. They will bear early, but you won't have much of a crop in year 3. By year 5 you will, and every year after that.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I have 1 Northstar cherry I bought from Miller's 4 years ago, it is starting to bear cherries now. The tree is still tiny, it is the smallest one in the orchard now. Here is a map I made 4 years ago, in May 2003. I just noticed a mistake in it too let's see if you can spot it: The tree above the apple tree that was labelled "Champion peach" is really another "Shinseiki pear":

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Here it is again May 2007 from a different camera angle. The Northstar cherry is the furthest to the right in the bottom photo. It is still a runt but now it is producing a lot of little cherries. Look how big the apple tree and Asian pears got after 4 or 5 years. Wow even the grass looks much nicer, when I first cleared that orchard ground from pasture it looked terrible.

It's amazing to see the tiny sticks grow into actual trees.

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Kubota, I would do some major lopping on those pears, or they are going to go up up up and then out out out and you are going to shade out the other trees and you will have nothing but pears. I would take them down to less than the other trees in height, since they will again grow. Or you may want to take them even further down and get some lower branching, I see no branching lower down now. All my pears I lopped off at 3' or less and they now have many low branches.

Scott

I think you can also do a better job mulching the trees. It appears that you laid down a thin layer of mulch over grass that is still growing.

If you just want to watch them grow natural that's cool. Your pear looks like one down the road from my house. It will only get a little thicker and much taller. But to make life much easier, I would prune them. How do you keep from cutting them? I can't put my pruner away. My pear is growing straight out with super long branches that need to be cut, but I'm staying away cause I told myself I would not prune this particular tree until late summer. I'm tempted to prune the pear even though I keep snipping at my other trees.

Thanks for the constructive criticism. Yes, I will prune those trees especially the apple tree and peach trees. The asian pears tend to be very upright and to not spread a lot by nature. I am spreading the branches a little by hanging weights from them. I can't let the trees get too wide because I need to get the tractor in between them to mow. But yes I need to do some serious pruning.

The point about mulching is well taken I have added more grass clippings mulch to all the trees to make it a wider base of mulch. Thank you.