Ummm....I've got a sweet dwarf cherry that my mum bought as a whip, it fruited (albeit half a dozen cherries!) the year after I planted it, and it doesn't need a pollinator.
I can't remember the variety for the life of me but I'm pretty sure it came from J Parker's catalogue. I'll check with my mum and see if I can find out more.
Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006 Posts: 8407 Location: South Cornwall
Posted: Mon Dec 11, 06 11:32 pm Post subject:
wild strawberries are excellent from seed.
wild cherries make better bird food.
If you want to feed the birds plant it.
You could grow your cherry from seed then use it as a root stock. If you know of a particularly good wild cherry or a named variery, you could take a peice and graft it onto your rootstock in a couple years time. Thats how the nurseries do it.
It's the rootstock that controls vigour and precocity, so you'd end up with pretty much the same problems as the actual seedling (although it'd fruit a little earlier)
Mine were self seeded (or is that bird seeded;) )
They used to be really small fruits,not much more than the stone with a skin but in the last couple of years they have produced actual edible cherries .
I think it must be the weather change and the fact that they are now not competing with a bramble patch for survival.
I looked at some in wilko last year but they get too tall about 25 feet and that would mean they get wide too so there would be all tree and no garden.
How well does keeping a cherry tree in a pot constrain its growth? I'm banking on my potted cherry tree being manageable, you see...
It can be done quite successfully, there was an article in the "Friends of Brogdale" newsletter a couple of years ago, need to be on a dwarfing rootstock
Cool. Mine is meant to be on a miniature rootstock, which I took to be semi-dwarfing from what it said on the label. I really should have thought through that purchase rather than impulse buying. Cycling home with three trees tied to my frame was probably quite a sight.
Last edited by cab on Wed Dec 13, 06 1:15 pm; edited 1 time in total