No pics :( My good phone died because of my sweaty gardening, lol. But it's definitely powdery mildew, at least if it looks the same as in roses. We have 'wild' seedlings from really old ornamental Japanese cherries around here as our only 'wild' cherries, and they grow great. I've never seen black knot, which I hope is a good sign. Cankers on lots of cultivated things are a big problem, though, yeah. My orchard is nice and windy, so it stays drier than many Southern yards, but you know that humidity is still way up there disturbingly often! I know the cherries are a bit of an experiment. Unfortunately, my very favorite fruits and nuts are hard to grow here. So I grow both easy and hard fruits and hope that the harder ones do well enough to not rip out :) I have room, so that part is easy enough.

I am inland San Diego with heavy DG soil. I have two four year old cherry trees on colt. I keep mine around eight feet with a single light pruning in the summer. The hot dry summer and heavy soil keeps them in check. Not much growth occurs after June. Colt may get to 20-30 feet under the right conditions. No way they would get that big in my yard even without pruning. Mine haven't been very precocious. This was the first year they set more than a few fruit. Maybe a 100 or so.

Latest Low chill cherries from DWN: The Minnie Royal and Royal Lee sweet cherries are the new entries I have seen in years. Perhaps these may have some chance in some parts of South CA and the Bay Area where you get lower chills. These are new and needed to be tested by brave backyard growers. I can't find a DWN retail nursery that are selling these at the moment, at least not within an hour drive from Davis. DWN Cherries Minnie Royal: Medium-sized red cherry; firm with good flavor; ripens 11-14 days ahead of Bing; tree is very productive with a low chill requirement; mainly used as a pollinizer for Royal Lee; pollenized by Royal Lee (U.S. Plant Patent # 12942 - Zaiger) Royal Lee: Medium-large red cherry; heart-shaped, very firm with excellent flavor; ripens 11-14 days ahead of Bing; tree is very productive with a low chill requirement; pollenized by Minnie Royal(U.S. Plant Patent # 12472 - Zaiger) And this one that's old news: Royal Rainier: a red-blushed "white" variety from Zaiger; large, firm, yellow cherry with very good to excellent quality that ripens ahead of Rainier, holds well on tree, pollenizer required - cross compatible with Bing (U.S. Plant Patent # 10790). Reported to bear fruits for some CRFG members in South California.

One of the catch-22s for soCal is that such trees may bloom -- often for a prolonged time -- and they may even set fruit, but most fruit, if not all, will drop. So, this is a wait and see situation. Get back to us later if you get, or don't get, some cherries.