Bing cherries are not self-fertile and so need another sweet cherry variety for cross pollination. But not another Bing.

If you live in the western half of the state, I'd suggest you try Lapins, Sweetheart or Stella. These are all self-fertile varieties (considered universal pollinators), are heavy producers of big, juicy, dark fruits much like Bing but have much greater crack resistance in the cooler, wetter half of the state.

Plant tags do not provide this kind of growing information. You either have to do your research before you purchase or buy from a reputable plant nursery - not a box store - where this information is provided on the signage or on handouts.

Thanks. Had to watch videos for kids on pollination yesterday to figure this out. I had no clue. Now I have another projedt to do with the kids, just need to track down some new trees to plant.

Thank you. I have been spraying some organic pest spray on this tree for the last month. Any advice on what to do about this damage. I haven't seen a single pest around but something is or was going to town here. Thanks again.

The insect and disease problems that can affect cherry trees, especially in the PNW, are endless. But it is far too late in the season to worry about treating for anything now.....it will soon be dropping leaves and entering dormancy. And unless the tree shows much more foliar damage that what you are showing here, I wouldn't bother treating even next season!! Insects and leaf damage are pretty much inevitable and in most cases, nothing more than aesthetic.

i mail ordered almost all my fruit trees.. back in the day ...

if you dont want to do that .... talk with the manager of a high end nursery.. and have them order one in their winter delivery ....

learn about integrated pest management on cherry trees ....

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=integrated+pest+management+on+cherry+trees&t=ffcm&ia=web

the multi spray year long program.. is one of the reasons i quit on my home orchard dreams .... not to mention birds who tend to steal them.. a couple days before they ripen ...

regardless ... you must do it yourself .... not quit now.. because of my history ...

ken

Ken, you live in MI, not WA :-) Fruit trees suitable to the area are available at any nursery here in late winter. Mail order is not necessary unless you want something exotic.

And spraying fruit trees may or may not be necessary. Growing up I lived on a large property on the outskirts of Seattle with many different types of fruit trees, including 3 different types of cherries, and we never sprayed for anything yet still had amazing harvests.

Must be tough running an orchard let alone an organic one

The bird aspect is worth re-mentioning. Expect to be having to cover your sweet cherry trees in bird netting every year as harvest time approaches or you will be losing perhaps even most of your crop.

It doesn't seem to be as bad with sour cherries like 'Montmorency', with it being fairly easy to still get plenty of them for oneself despite the birds coming. But if a body wants most of these for their own use then netting has to be employed in this instance also.

Also if you leave the tree where it is right next to the fence - and there is a neighboring property on the other side - you are going to end up with half the tree on their side.

Unless they cut it back to the fence line.

OP bought her first tree at bigbox ....

i was just pointing out mail order was an option .... if for no other reason ... fruit tree websites usually indicate options for pollinators ....

and then all the power to ya.. if you can take that knowledge to a local store ... we need to keep as many of them in business as we can ...

ken

I happen to be at Lowe’s today getting some paint. I wasn’t planing on it based on everyone’s posts but they had a ton of trees on clearance and I couldn’t resist. I got an 8’ gala Apple, 8’ honey crisp and 5’ Rainer cherry tree, all for $54. The Apple trees are in excellent shape as far as I can tell. The cherry tree looks a little banged up but for $54 if they don’t make it oh well. It was a brutally dry and hot summer here so this will make things a bit easier for me going ito rainy season (at least for a bit). We moved here from Chicago last year and I wasn’t familiar weather. A bunch of our arboratives (spelling) got smoked because I didn’t stay on top of them.

The Rainier cherry will make a suitable pollination partner for the Bing!!

"It was a brutally dry and hot summer here "

Actually, our summer weather in western WA was pretty much par for the course :-) It is always very dry here in summer......this is a recurring summer drought area. And the temperatures were also pretty typical although a few more days in the 90's strung together than we normally receive. Same for the eastern half of the state, although that is even drier and hotter than the coastal western half.

Glad we don’t live in eastern WA then. It’s dry as hell here in the summer. Seattle gets a bad wrap. Everyone says it rains all the time.m and thats what we were expecting until we got here. We have had 6 months of nothing but sun. We do miss the thunderstorms though.

"Everyone says it rains all the time.m and thats what we were expecting until we got here."

And that's the impression PNW'ers try to encourage :-) Keeps all the riff-raff out!!

We actually get less rain here than many other parts of the country. It just comes in light doses over an extended period of time. It is very dry here in summer but never 6 months worth!! Last year broke records in the Seattle area for the longest period without rain but that was only 55 days. There is always some rain produced through the summer months but not all that much and to PNW newcomers who are used to downpours, it may not register as rain at all.

And thunderstorms here are few and far between and most often occur in late fall. All in all, this is a very mild climate area and not prone to severe weather of any sort. That's why most stuff grows here so well and so lushly.

Western Washington's summers are nearly always quite dry, but this summer is unusually so.

At SeaTac Airport, we are down about 2 inches from normal for the last 12 weeks

And looking at the precipitation anomaly (difference from normal) over the past 90 days for WA state shows near normal precipitation over the Columbia Basin, but a dry western Washington, with the windward slopes of the Cascades being roughly 3-5 inches below normal.

To get some historical perspective, here is the May to July precipitation for Washington State since 1930. This year was not a record low, but was one of the driest years during that period. Overall, there has not been much a long-term trend in early summer precipitation, but we have had a drier than normal spell the last few years.

Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog - Friday August 31, 2018 - A Dry Summer

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2018-09-02T22:18:00-07:00&max-results=2&start=8&by-date=false

Cherry trees require cold winters to produce fruit. Research: cherry chill hours

Sweet cherries don't have any trouble setting in the climate here, as long as cross pollination occurs. In fact Prunus avium is a nuisance species for us, often popping up in local green spaces. Where it may form suckering groves. Or produce tall specimens in wooded settings that grow as tall as - or taller than - native deciduous trees in their immediate vicinity. In fact it is so at home in our area that it has long since crossed with the native P. emarginata many times to produce an intermediate (and thankfully fruitless, therefore self-limiting) hybrid P. x pugetensis. Which is itself not rare in the vicinity of Puget Sound.

Thats interesting. I saw my first plum tree the other day on the side of the road in Issaquah. It was gigantic and looked like it was thriving among the other trees and bushes.