Pam:

I'm not having much luck in Alpine. And I'm not totally sure why. I think we get enough chilling but am not 100% even on that. In Amarillo I had fair luck with Stella. It had fruit about half the years but the quality was poor. So I'm sure Amarillo gets enough chilling. If you are around Dallas you may get enough chilling but I'm not sure of anything else.

Check out Oak Creek Orchard's website. Richard Ashton has written a book you can buy about growing cherries near Brownwood. That might be helpful depending on where you live.

Try Stella, Lapins,and Minnie Royal and Royal Lee.

Take a look at the descriptions at Dave Wilson Nursery.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dave Wilson Nursery

Texas A&M says sour cherries have a chance, but not sweet.

The most reputable Texas fruit tree nursery I know of, Womack's, doesn't even sell cherry trees, which tells me something.

All of which hasn't stopped me from trying, I planted a Stella & Lapin a couple years ago, & I got 2 cherries from my Lapin this year, tasted great!

I'll second looking at the Oak Creek orchard website, Richard Ashton has done a lot of research there on cherries.

I would think in TX it would be like an apricot. They both tend to flower very early which then proceed to get zapped by late cold.

I would give Royal Lee and Minnie Royal a try.

FYI, Womack's is selling these varieties now. You can also get them from Bay Laurel Nursery and Raintree Nursery.

I had cherries on my 2 year old Compact Stella located in Dallas in 2010. This winter, I planted 2 each of the Royal Lee and Minnie Royal. I purchased mine from Bay Laurel, and they arrived in good shape -- probably 3/4 inch in diameter.

They are said to only need 200-300 chilling hours, so I expect that they will do well here. They produce in Southern California. Compact Stella requires approximately 700 chilling hours.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dallas Fruit Grower

I am trying Starkrimson, Stella, Lapin, Minnie Royal, Royal Lee and Royal Rainer Sweet Cherries in Austin. They are doing ok so far with the Starkrimson being the oldest and largest, it's bloomed the last 3 years, and had some fruit that the birds got.
North Texas has more chilling hours so other varieties of Cherries would probably work for your area(perhaps Bing, Van, others). Sour Cherries are supposed to be good in Tx and OK too. The Root stock is another factor to investigate with your local extension service and area garden clubs. Cotton Root rot can be a real killer; lost a sour cherry tree that way. Another option is a dwarf cherry grown in a container.

My expectation of the low chilling cherries in most of Texas is that they will bloom too early and get frozen out in spring. I didn't bother to try them outside here because even the high chilling cherries bloom too early. My high chill cherries have been frozen out four years running. After the last freeze in March 2010, I cut the trees down.

I am trying the low chilling types in my greenhouse not because of the low chilling but because some of them mature early. This year my cherries got ~1,100 Utah chilling hrs in the greenhouse. I'm now on spring warm up and running the greenhouse at 60s by day and 30s at night. I'll increase this by 2F every 10 days until after fruit set.

Cherries have been the most difficult fruit to grow in the greenhouse. Fruit set has been mostly 1-25% in the past with a more rapid spring warmup. I'm hoping with the temperature regime in place this year that set will be 50%. What fruit I've gotten has been very large and very high quality.

I have a Capulin cherry that is supposed to be OK with heat and it is similar in layout to the Cherry Laurel. Anyone wanting to assist in this project with scion wood or grafting skills would be welcom.

fruitof76 I'm in Austin. May I have an update? How are your cherry trees doing?

Hill Country Nursery had a Minnie Royal cherry. http://hillcountrynatives.net/catablog-items/cherry-minnie-royal-prunus-avium-minnie-royal/

I know we get the chilling hours. My concern is the blasting heat. I wish "good for zone ratings" considered both lows and highs.

The Capulin Cherry grows in mexico. Unfortunately I have never succeeded in buying a cultivar of that one, and the non cultivars are rather nasty. Bummer.

If I can quickly interject here to clear up the confusion, Capulin is not in the same species group as sweet cherries, but the two CAN likely pollinate and be crossbred. It would be like a cross between a horse and a donkey, the hybrid mule offspring is sterile and cannot further sexually reproduce (though in the case of plants they can still be clonally propagated through cuttings).

All cherry varieties can generally be divided into two groups: those with 16 chromosomes and those with 32. Sweet cherries and cherry blossom trees belong to the first group, while all the rest (Black cherries, sour cherries, etc.) fit into the second.

As for whether Capulin cherries fall under Prunus serotina, taxonomists have never really made a clear determination. Depending on how you want to look at it, Capulins could just be a particular family of cultivars under Prunus serotina, or it could be classified as a subspecies, or it could be considered a whole species group unto itself. This type of ambiguity is actually not that uncommon within the cherry family. Some prefer to classify Capulin as Prunus salicifolia. One thing that can be said is that Capulin is extremely closely related to Wild Black Cherries, they just have a different natural geographic range.

I have a comment to interject here... I am in dallas area as are several commenters. this means, likely, you have the same soil I have. Black Gumbo. Most of north texas has this... its a clay-like soil. MOST people who plant trees here, plant them like trees... straight in the ground. All the descriptions I have seen about sweet cherries say, 'needs well drained soil', 'wont thrive in dense soils' ect... so, I have planted last febuary (2/2014) a Lapins, an Nepolitan, and a Skeena cherry tree in a 2 x 12 raised bed that is 6' x 8'.

The size of the box was to intentionally assist in dwarfing them, with root competition, but I purchased and brought in bedding soil mixed with green sand. I tilled the land before I built the box, and mixed in some sand and slightly degraded leaves, and then placed the box and filled it up with this well draining, loose and friable soil. Topped off with a thick mulch layer.

I am hoping to have better results than I am hearing about here (and other places) but I SUSPECT that its the soil... my trees will root into the gumbo, of course, but the root balls are all up higher and in nice soil. I ''think'' this will give me success where others have failed.

have any of you considered this?

I actually have 11 raised boxes just like this, all my fruit trees are in them (except my figs, and they have done the poorest of the lot.)

I planted all these trees in February last year, and I cut them down to about 18-20'' to start, then summer pruned them down to about 30'', and even after ALL THAT... my plums are 10' tall right now. I think I may be onto something here :)

I wonder if Escarpment Cherry is worth a darn? Not that it matter since I can find no one who can sell me one . . . .

I live in McKinney TX, planted cherry trees 3 years in a row, started with a 4 in 1 cherry tree with bing, rainier, cant remember the two others. They lasted around 6 months, it could have been the fact that I may have planted them too late in the season. Tried again the next year with one bing and one Rainier, both blossomed in the spring, cherries formed and the birds had a ball, they grew very nicely in height after coming out of dormancy, but last year with the unusually high volumes of rain in spring the rainier died a solemn death. The Bing however was planted in a different type of soil and doubled the height from maybe 4 feet when planted to 8 feet when it went to sleep in November. In a week I will be trying again, this time with a 5 in 1 tree, Bing, Lapins, Black Tarrant, Royal Ann, and Stellar. We had over a 1000 hours of chilling hours in 2014 going into 2015, so far as of yesterday we are at 576 chilling hours http://etweather.tamu.edu/chill/ use this link to track your location, so I think I should be able to get lots of blossoms on the trees. I am doing the same thing a blogger mentioned by removing the heavy clay from the location I am planting and replacing with more porous and quality soil. I'll never stop trying to get cherries especially since I have proof that its possible with my 8 foot Bing tree.

Apart the chilling requirment, the problem could be the dry summer. Cherries like water, here in ITaly are grown mainly in the North. Anyway, i think the right cultivar could give you a change...plant it in half-shadow zone (not more than 6-7 hours of direct sun) and water it during the first summers....

Here you can see Cherry Photos :)

If you like cherry flavor with a bigger fruit than try the Nadia cherry/plum developed in Australia and sell by Raintree nursery. This hybrid is a good one.

Tony

Tony, do you have a Nadia that has produced for you? I am in sw Oklahoma and ordered one from Raintree. It should be arriving any day and I am crossing my fingers that it was a good purchase.

It was new last year from Raintree Nursey so no one knows how good it taste and only here what the nursery man tell you. Lots more infos in a year or two. It is usually takes about 4-5 years to evaluate a new fruit.

Tony

Any idea what this (presumably) cherry shrub growing wild in DFW is?

It might be a Hiawatha Plum! What do you think?

My guess would be a wild plum. They grow wild in Northwest Texas. We has some growing wild close to Waco by an old farm house. They make good jelly, but are too tart for fresh eating.

^ Yes, I think it is a "wild plum." But, what exactly is a "wild plum?" Name, species? (I don't think it's a Hiawatha Plum, because they never turned "almost black" when fully ripe.)

Did yours have thorns, btw?

I'm not talking about fruit flavor here, but Capulin is very very closely related to Black Cherry. They're almost the same species that just have a different native geographical extent and have adapted a little differently to different climates.

Both are native to the North American continent, and Texas is right smack in the middle of the geographic extent for these two species.

Plums do not have thorns, but do have fruiting spurs that may look like thorns. A true thorn will not have buds or leaves growing on them. A fruiting spur is short and can be pointed but will have leaves and tends to be where they put on their fruit.

I would take a branch with the leaves to your local Agrilife extension service. They should be able to identify it or at least send off pictures to their experts to see what it actually is.

fruitof76(8b) - Any success with Lapins?

dwight_henrysr - How is your Lapin graft? Is it successful?

No Pete, it died in the latter part of summer. My Bing keeps growing and blossoming a lot, crazy enough I get at least 3 cherries, so hoping a pollinator is close by me.

Here are a few good varieties you can graft to your Bing to get a better fruit set like Sandra Rose, Rainer, or Utal Giant.

Tony

Thanks Tony, your idea is fantastic, I have been going on about it the wrong way.