Sure, it's called pruning :-) I have an intensely planted "Pick & Walk" orchard of about 22 stone fruit and pomes. I have them all planted very close together, about 2 to 4 feet apart along a walkway on either side. Most are on semi-dwarfing rootstock, but for us here in S. Calif., due to our year 'round growing conditions, semi-dwarfing rootstock doesn't mean much :-) So, invest in a good pair of Felco pruners and loppers, and you can keep any stone fruit at the height you want. I plan on keeping mine no taller than as far as I can reach up. It means some pretty agressive pruning, and keeping the canopy opened up, but it's actually pretty easy to do. I would suggest watching Dave Wilson Nursery's great You Tube videos. Here is Dave Wilson's main website:
Dave Wilson Backyard Orchard Culture Home Page

And below I've included a link to Dave Wilson's You Tube home page. They JUST posted a second video summer pruning of stone fruits, and in fact, were pruning a cherry tree! So, it just what you'll want to see, to keep your cherries down to a reasonable size.

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dave Wilson You Tube Home Page

Sweet cherries can grow rapidly to a VERY large size, so prune early and prune often. As Patty S suggests, "semi-dwarf" cherry seems to mean "humongously tall".

I wish I had realized this earlier than I did. My tree might not be so ugly now.

dirtslinger:

The easiest way to keep them small is a dwarf rootstock like Gisela 5. Second on any rootstock put them in a pot. Mine in 15 gal pots did extremely well this year. So well I had to thin the fruit on some. And quality was 25-35 brix, that's very sweet. Third would be pruning to something like the Spanish bush. This delays fruiting a year but gives a tree that is pretty easy to keep small. You train this by heading back hard, very hard, in spring until there are numerous low shoots. After fruiting starts remove the four largest shoots every year. New shoots should take their place.

I should have pointed out that bush training usually takes two years of heading back in spring to get the bushy plant needed. But you do that until you have as many shoots as you want. Then you might still need to summer prune those shoots if they get too long. After a shoot has fruited a couple years it will be removed and replaced by another shoot originating down low. At least that's the plan.

Fruit-

I may try that with one tree per year, so other trees maintain fruit. I have 4 sweets, all on Gisela 5. They really don't grow much.

I live near St. Paul, so sweet cherries are rather marginal here. Dwarf fruit trees of any sort are said by the County Extension Service not to be hardy this far north, so I planted a standard lapins sweet cherry in spring of 2008. When that seemed to be growing well, I ordered a Kristin in 2010. By mistake I was also sent a semi-dwarf lapins. I'll be happy if any of them ever get cherries, even if only occasionally. I don't need humongous trees. My standard lapins is already about 15' high. Would chopping off the top affect its hardiness or how soon it might produce cherries, if it ever should produce any? Has anyone else on the edge of zone 4 gotten ripe sweet cherries? Would letting the top grow increase the chance the birds wouldn't get them all? Northwoodswis

Letting the top grow will increase the chance that YOU wouldn't get them. Too high to reach.

Thanks for the tips here. Fruitnut, that sounds exactly like what will work in this position- although in ground not in pots. Pots require too much love!

Ltilton, that's exactly what I mean. If I leave the top, maybe the birds will be so overwhelmed with them they can't eat them all, and it might result in them leaving some where I can reach them. Again, has anyone in this zone 4a ever actually gotten sweet cherries to produce a crop?
Northwoodswis

dirtslinger, I have my Minnie Royal and Royal Lee (both on Colt rootstock) in the ground. I just did some serious summer pruning, and made sure I also pruned away any branches growing towards the middle of the canopy. This should work well, just need to make sure you do that summer pruning after fruiting, to reshape to keep the canopy open and low. It's not so hard. I remember growing up in Vancouver, BC and our lovely German neighbor across the alley. She had an absolutely ginormous Bing cherry tree. We used to scramble up into it and pick cherries. We'd just drop them down to the ground, scramble down, then gather them all up. We were always allowed to have all the cherries we could scramble up and pick. Can't do that anymore, but sure was a fun memory. Remember spending a few long evenings in the bathroom after too many cherries, lol!!

Patty S.

fruitnut - is there aparticular advantage to doing this pruning in the summer?

ltilton:

You do the heading in spring the first two years or as needed to force multiple strong shoots. Then summer pruning only if needed to control height. Later on the four strongest shoots, one in each quadrant, are removed each year in spring to renew fruiting wood. If your tree is smaller it could be less shoots removed each year.

Mind you I haven't tried this yet. Based on experience with how cherries grow I think it will work. Will try it on my next potted sweet cherries.

This is something like what I've done with my Stella tree, except I've always done it in the fall dormant season.

What's the advantage of doing it in the spring?

ltilton:

Spring means end of dormant season to me.

Pruning itself is no panacea when you don't understand what you're doing, which is trying to create lots of small fruiting pieces when cherries tend to respond to heading with large vigorous and vegetative growth. Heading cuts during the growing season or better yet, pinching shoots with your fingers is more likely to produce finer wood than dormant pruning.

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pdf/pnw/pnw543.pdf

Here's some details.

I should have mentioned that fruiting is what can dwarf a tree oversized for it's space and cherry fruiting occurs on small pieces of wood called spurs- this is what you are trying to help form with pruning while plants are in active growth.

The Spanish bush type training isn't going to lead to early bearing of cherry. It's likely to delay bearing by a year compared to many other systems. But it looks like a system that would allow a small tree.

On rootstocks like Gisela 5 even the Spanish bush won't take long to bear. The new dwarfing cherry root stocks are amazingly precocious compared to Mazzard. Their main problem is over bearing especially on high yielding, precocious cultivars like Sweetheart, Lapins, and Chelen. Those cultivars on G5 or similar will need lots of pruning or fruit thinning to avoid over bearing.

Harvestman: Do you really think cherry fruits enough that a heavy crop load will affect vigor, because I don't. Cherries just don't yield enough at a crop load that gives high quality fruit. Plus fruiting is very early in the season with plenty of time after harvest for growth. For crop load to affect vigor very much I think you need a heavy bearing fruit like apple. Most stone fruit, for me, will grow right through a heavy crop if water and fertility promote growth. Do you see it differently?

Thanks harvestman for the great article. Interestingly, I went down to check my fruit trees yesterday, especially my cherries (Minnie Royal and Royal Lee), to see how my summer pruning fared. My cherry trees are starting to bloom! What the heck. My Anna apple trees are also blooming, but that's kind of normal for Annas here in my area. I'm wondering if this is also the norm for these very low chill cherries in the same way it is for the equally low chill Anna? How fascinating. My cherries are on Colt rootstock.

Patty S.

Informative article, harvestman. I may make something out of my Stella yet.

Yes that is the best tutorial on pruning cherries that I've seen. Follow it not my crude description.

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU cherry pruning guide

Fruit-

Will a Gisela 5 rootstock ever have a trunk? Say after 15 or 20 years?

Sure, mine are 2.5-3 inches in a pot at about 4 yrs age.

So, it is now 6 years since this thread was on G/W. How have your fruit trees done?