Japanese ornamental cherries may occasionally fruit, in some situations. I have gotten the opportunity to taste one of these fruits when they are fully ripe. When fully ripe they are very dark and have a very dark scarlet juice that stains. The fruits can be pretty juicy, but the fruits are pretty small and don't have much edible flesh, a very small flesh to seed ratio. The taste has a lot of bitterness and are not very sweet. The first thing that hits you is the bitterness, but after that there's an aftertaste of intense cherry cough syrup, which is a little stronger tasting than regular sweet cherries. It almost makes me think these could be used for culinary flavoring, but you'd have to want bitterness too (like in certain alcoholic cocktail drinks). Might not be a good idea to eat too many though. The most common Japanese ornamental cherry variety, Yoshino, is a very poor pollinator, so usually cannot pollinate itself, which means no cherries. Kwanzan is a sterile variety, cannot produce fruit, and the others require a different cherry variety (any species) to pollinate it if any fruit is to form.

I have read that in this instance that people can do two grafts. The native variety being the most hardy and strongest rooting, then a short intermediary piece which can bridge between the native and fruiting varieties. Can anyone assist? Or know someone who can? I have cut down a large native cherry and would like to graft lapins and stella to the sprouts which are sure to come up this spring. "example taken from plum/almond stone fruit grafting" - " Also (and this is where the fun starts) most fruit trees in the Prunus genus are sometimes compatible with each other: almonds, apricots, nectarines, peaches, and plums all are compatible for grafting, but occasionally it's complicated. For example, some plum rootstock is not compatible with peaches or nectarines; and some almonds require an intermediate step before grafting onto some plum rootstocks."

The "big spikes growing on the side of the tree" may be from below the graft. If they have upright, non-weeping growth different from the original weeping cherry, that is certainly the case. These will very likely be of Wild Cherry (Prunus avium), which does bear fruit, though the cherries may be rather sour (though quite a lot of Wild Cherries do have very nice fruit, too). The flowers of Wild Cherry are single and white, not pink or double like the original, but still very attractive. Resin

Hello all. I would say the trees are mine. They both came up right along an old fence line and fruiting parts and branches come to my side because he has 4-40ish foot evergreen trees right there(I didn't notice the cherry until this year because of the undergrowth but it looks plenty old). I think he believes there is no way to take down the taller trees he has neglected to prune and keep on his property without taking everything. The evergreens do not look particularly healthy(he finely cut back lower branches this spring but has left the piles of brush sitting with another bush he pulled that was always in my way). It is a bit of an odd situation I think. Decent neighbors but they tend to put in plants and neglect their growth right along the property line. Why purposely add plants along a property line and not care for them so they come onto your neighbors property giving them fits? Between that and trash blowing over is why my father put up the old fence in the first place. The fruiting trees make it all the more ironic because I think anyone would want to keep them. But unlike his trees up until he trimmed them maybe six weeks ago, the fruit bearers are up and out of the way meaning lawn care around them is simple. He has said for years he was removing the stuff but hasn't so who knows. I would have to look up grafting to understand it but if I was buying root stock why not just get trees? I was trying to use what nature gave me because it is what nature gave me---not necessarily to save that specific tree or a clone(though the cherries taste fantastic). So an air layer would work this time of year? If so, what type of branch or growth am I looking for? I don't know how easy it will be to get the supplies but the one video of an air layer I did see looked simple.