If it isn't you, someone around here has a couple in the ground. I have 2 on order from Raintree. I have NO IDEA the outcome of this experiment. I guess if they can flower around the same time as the peaches, they should be fine. I'm going to put mine in the best location i have available (shaded winter location, full summer sun location) and pile the snow around them). I used the snow method with the peaches and my apples have more green on them then the peach trees currently do...so i'm guessing it delayed them some. I'm going with Kristin and i think Lapins (i'd have to look). I might just put a Northstar in from a local place just in case.

If we can get 4 or 5 years of milder winters, i think we should be fine. Hopefully by that time the trees are large enough to take a harsh winter or 2. Generally the coldest temps i'll have to face each winter is a -20F to -25F... I think sudden warm ups and sudden cold downs will play more a roll then overall cold temps (at least those that i see). Spring time freezes (like tonite!) are also going to make it or break it for sweet cherries.

I recently planted a Carmine Jewel and Crimson Passion bush cherries. These two varieties were bred at U. of Saskatchewan. Bush cherries are able to survive zone 2 and may be able to produce in the second year. The link below tells how bush cherries can sweeten on the bush to 22 brix. Sweet cherries are about 15 brix. I hope I get a few cherries this year to try.

Here is a link that might be useful: bush cherries

I planted Kristin, black gold, white gold, stella, and lapin last year and all made it and look ok. This spring I planted Carmine jewel and Crimson Passion also. I also have Van and Windsor and they also have had little damage from last winter. They have been in the ground for quite a few years and the Windsor started blossoms last year and looks like it will have much more this year. I have also mulched and painted the trunks white quite high. They have suffered in the past from diseases that is from all the countless wild ones. A diseased tree is a weak tree and so in the future they will get a disease prevention program in late fall and early spring. Our frost goes very deep here as well however it is possible to mulch with 2 ft or more of straw with a plastic cover to keep it dry. A screen for voles will be a must. I agree that the older a tree gets the more hardy it is. That does not apply to the blossoms however. I have been growing plums for quite some time and planted 18 sprouts today that I will graft to. I have about 20 varieties and the biggest surprise was how hardy Santa Rosa is. It is very late in swelling its buds and escapes the frosts. We have had frosts down to 27 the last 5 nights! Many Canadians also grow plums. If you have trouble with sweet cherries then plums would be a nice sub.

Thanks for all the help. I think I might try one of the sweet cherries, cant hurt I guess. Everyone told me not to plant peach trees either and they have survived.

I bought a Meteor tonite (sour), would like to get a North Star if i can find one locally.

I will have 5 plums once the three news ones show up. I have a superior and alderman. A guy i know grows plums an hour north of here and gets bumper crops. Have no idea what they are but they are AWESOME. Nothing like you get in the store.

Ace of Spades, I am very intrigued by Carmine Jewel and Crimson Passion bush cherries and would love to know how they turn out for you. Of course I have the opposite problem here, possibly not enough chill for these cherries to be happy. I don't know of anyone who has tried them and I'm very curious. Please report back when you get some cherries and let us know what you think.

Rosefolly

I planted a Lapins,Kristin, white gold and a Black gold last year and all seem to have made it through the winter with no damage. I'm just west of mpls-st.paul and have had quite a cold winter here and very cold spring(its still getting down to 26-28 at nite and they seem to be doing fine). There buds are really starting to swell and turn green. Hopefully well get some blossums next year!

Tom

I will be waiting to hear how the winter of 08-09 affected your sweet cherries. Please let us know. I planted a Lapins, Evans, and Carmen Jewel in '08, so will be curious to see what I find when the weather warms up. I also planted a PF-24C and a Contender peach. If they survive this winter, they should be able to handle most anything. I live just east of Minneapolis. Northwoodswis

I know a few of you who commented on this old thread still post regularly, so how have your sweet cherries been doing after our winters of global warming? Have you gotten any fruit yet? I have nary a cherry yet. I thought I was getting some sours forming last summer on the meteor, but then they disappeared, so I don't know if they weren't pollinated properly, froze, or the birds ate them when still 1/4-1/2" in diameter and green. I have planted Meteor and Evans sour, Lapins and Kristin sweet, and Carmen Jewels. Maybe this will finally be the year I get a taste! My peaches both croaked the very first winter and I never bothered replacing them. Northwoodswis

A update would be nice!
I see, for zone 4 it's possible, for zone 3 like I'm in a no, ..unless you have some winter protection, under snow etc.

I've yet to eat a cherry from my orchard. The Evans had 5 cherries forming last summer, but the birds ate them before they got ripe. The frost got any blossoms that may have formed on the rest. I was away from home in blossom season, so I'm not sure which ones actually blossomed. Maybe 2013 will be the year! I presently have 4 Carmen Jewels, 2 Lapins, one Kristin, one Evans, and one Meteor. Northwoodswis

Oh darn, hopefully 13 will be the lucky year!

Can you please keep an eye on the Kristin, as far as I know, this one should be the hardiest of all. I always wanted some wood for testing. Perhaps others can comment on this one.

I planted about 40 Van Cherry on mazzard rootstock 2 years ago. When I bought them the nursery rated them Zone 4 although most other ratings I've seen since then have been Zone 5. Initial mortality was about 10%. 2nd year growth was robust. It'll be a least a few more years before I know how it'll work out. There is a lower elevation slough adjacent to the field with the trees so I'll have some protection from spring frost.

Konrad,
Please tell us more about the Leningrad Black. I tried to Google it, and only got one site, which was in Russian! Have you tasted this cherry and do you know where we in the U.S. can obtain it? Thanks. Northwoodswis

Sorry, not much detail,..
somebody from Europe told me this, but found out that it is nearly the same as any of our top hardiness we have allready. I was thinking, maybe some Russian Immigrants took some of their cherries over here?

Last year was an awesome sweet cherry year for me...best yet. I believe it was my Kristin (whatever blooms the latest of the 3) that got hit by a spring freeze, but the Lapins and Black Gold fruit beautifully. Flavor was outstanding (birds agreed)... Cherries were huge and very little cracking (no rain). Winter temps the past few have been very unWisconsin like, at least in yard. This year i think we've had -12F or so, the same as last year. I'd like to see a -20F or colder just to see what would happen...but its getting pretty late for that kind of cold (rain this weekend!)...

I'd like to add that pests were a major problem later in the season with the cherries. The Japanese Beetles flocked to the sweet cherries to feed on the leaves...something to keep an eye on. Plum Curculio got a few sweet cherries, but not many... I never sprayed my trees )too close to the house).

Good to hear about the Black Gold... I planted one last year and it grow well, so I have high hopes for future years. Here too it only got down to like 10 or 12 below this winter. We've gotten a ton of snow this winter, unlike last winter. Seems the weather is turning back normal, which I take as a good sign, even if it might hurt my cherries in future seasons.

Was wondering how the 2014 crop turned out?

Clark:

I planted a blackgold a few years ago. From Raintree on
G5 rootstock. It bore about 20 cherries in 2013. This year
it looked fine during pruning in March but no flowers in April.

It leafed out in May and then withered up around May 20th. Delayed winter injury. Not the only plant with damage this year. My peaches were killed too.

Spartan what zone are you in?

This post was edited by ClarkinKS on Tue, Oct 21, 14 at 4:39

Still waiting for my first ripe cherry. Planted 5 more Carmine Jewels that I got on clearance this fall, for a total of 11 bushes, plus two Lapins, one Kristin, an Evans, and a Meteor, none of which has ever produced a ripe cherry. Every year I keep hoping. Plums were nearly nonexistent this summer, either, on my many varieties. Northwoodswis

northwoodswis4 the fact that your growing lapins and kristin is very encouraging to me because zone 4a is slightly cooler than us. The sour cherries you mentioned are all reported to be excellent varieties.

Northwoodswis4 Hi

I think Sunburst, Stella, Lapins And Burlar are not hardiest sweet cherry varieties. You asked about Leningrad Black as you didn't find describtion for it. I think it is not most hardy variety. This is describtion for it fruit is dark red, it is smallish in size. It is from russia.Taste is sweet-sour,half free stone.Tree is strong growing. Tree is healthy and for sweet cherry good in hardiness. it is very productive and good in domestic use. Other source said it is sweet tasting. It is not in top hardiest sweet cherries, but it is quite good. I think it is better in hardiness than those sweet cherries in U.S.A which i told above, but not sure if it is better than all sweet cherries in U.S.A. I guess it is little complicated to say what makes sweet cherry to survive weather wise. No i have not tasted it as it was asked. I think Iputj is more hardy than that sweet cherry which was talked about above. Sweet Cherry can generally handle zone 5 about -29 celsius. I have read some Latvian, Estonian and Russian can withstand much lower temperature -35 c or less said one site. I mentioned Iputj variety which i have read online in few cold years temperature dropped -30C -32C that variety got 1 for tree damage, 0 was best number and 11% flower buds died. -30 Celsius is -22 F and 32 Celsius is -25 F. That is quite cold. So i think some those areas sweet cherry varieties are good for cold winters.

Good morning,

i am sorry to revive such an old thread. I am new to fruit trees, in canadian zone 5b ish. (Its my inderstanding that the official calculation method for zone hardiness differs between canada and USA so i wonder if I should assume i actually am in zone 4b)

I hope those who tried sweet cherry in z5 or z4 got some success! I am commenting because I found this publication, in french, of Quebec fruit "production" of cherry and peach. The book is titled "Les fruits du quebec, histoire et traditions des douceurs de la table" from Paul-Louis Martin.

Starting page 167 on, he mentions some sour and some sweet cherry varieties that where seemingly commercially grown around here at the time (Village of Abbotsford is zone 4b/5a for example) circa 1800. Since I am not an expert, I might be reading this wrong as he switches from sour to sweet varieties names between paragraphs. (Grillote, Cerise de France, cerise commune et cerise franche are some of the denominations I read, without knowing to which group they belong to, except for Grillote which is montmorency type.) There are some phrases like "Many years ago, a black sweet cherry with a delicious flavor grew largely about Montreal". Later, there is mention of varieties such as May Duke and Black Eagle that grew as cold as Saint-Denis-De-Kamouraska Z4.

Here is a link to the google book Les fruits du Quebec Histoire et traditions des douceurs de la table.

I dont know it it can be of any help to anyone.

Here is a list of varieties, maybe someone knows them and can say what they are and if they could be of interest (1790):

May Duke (sour)

Morello (sour)

Early Black

Black Heart

Kentish

I too am looking for hardy varieties. On my side I see some green on my sweet varieties but I dont think i'm getting much fruit this year, as when I dissected buds in March with razor blades, most had some brown in the center.

Thank you for all the great information you provide!

I planted a couple of Juliet bush cherries (sweet) last year - hoping for my first cherries this year. They came through the Michigan winter just fine, are just starting to leaf out.

Hugo: Great information there!

Through personal observations and visits with all the wild/native and domesticated cherries, I would have to agree with Hugo's citations that the duke cherries are more hardy than sweet cherry. Duke: AKA sweet X pie cherry. Because for the last 3 years of travels I have made through the ranges of hills and valleys of central B.C. I made my own list of how sweet cherry, pin cherry, etc... flower and survive. This year I was interested specifically in an early blooming sweet cherry slightly north of Clearwater BC. in a persons backyard because of the prolonged winter. ...and it had just finished another early bloom prior to all the wild pin cherries!

With that I met the retired homeowner who said the tree is fruiting every year with pie cherries and started about 1977, However pie cherries don't grow that fast and so tall so I told him it is a duke cherry. Note to you all: no other sweet cherry production is known north of Clearwater and therefore the May 3rd assessment above is correct concerning duke cherry types.

>>I planted a couple of Juliet bush cherries (sweet) <<

Juliet is a sour/pie cherry.

Here's my experience with sweet cherries in zone 4. My trees are entering their fourth year. This past winter was the coldest in many years. Environment Canada's coldest temp at a nearby station was -38.4 degrees Celsius. There were many days and nights in the minus 30s. Once spring finally came all 4 trees had significant gummosis coming from old wounds and anywhere branches had rubbed. So the roots were trying to do their job. From worst to best. Lapins - dead