There are only 2 truly dwarfing rootstocks available for cherry, as far as I know: Gisela 5 and Krymsk 5, so make sure you know what your rootstock is before you buy. If the person selling doesn't know, then it isn't. With these you can prune to a vase and keep the tree at about 10 feet and it won't be too hard to net so that you can actually ripen the fruit before the birds get them. It was the wetness that caused cracking in your cherries, not ripeness. Vandalay is my favorite cherry, black, just like Bing, but resistant to cracking, and self fruitful so it sets fruit in poor weather. In our rainy spring this year in Western Washington my tiny one year old tree that the deer pruned last summer so it really is tiny (less than 4 feet high) set 6 cherries! It is on Gisela 5. You don't need another tree for pollination. You can get them from Raintree, but it is too late for this year.

I'm counting on unusual weather to help my late bare-root plantings....... I really have no way of knowing, but here's my story: I received a Redhaven from Stark Bro's on 5/16/14, it had some HUGE roots, but virtually no little "feeder" roots. It had a tiny green dot at about 2" above the graft. Now (25 days later) that little dot is a couple leafs about 1 1/2" long. But nothing going on anywhere else on the tree - nowhere! If it doesn't get better in awhile I'll get it replaced. Stark has a good policy that way. After that I got 2 more peach trees and a cherry tree on 5/24/14 from Stark Bro's. They were just starting to show some real tiny green leaf in several places upon arrival. All three of these are looking PERFECT 17 days after planting. Lots of growth and all that. So, given that I went on ahead and ordered two more apple trees that will ship from them on 6/13/14. I don't know if they'll work out, I'm just going by the fact that a big place like Stark is still shipping so I figure they must think they'll survive. BUT.., if they don't - they'll replace them. So for me, at the bargain basement sale price that some of these trees are coming in at, I'm taking the gamble. I may be missing something (like stress on the tree and future impact of that, etc) but if I'm not, I figure all I'm out is the time and effort to plant them. If it doesn't pan out, I get to do it all over again. It's no big deal. But sometimes I just can't pass on a bargain.....

I don't have that piece but did have a red table from a different collection of theirs. Just looked but didn't see it on their website anymore. At any rate, I had the same decision problem you are having and finally bought it anyway. When the piece arrived it was a brighter, more cherry-ish red than I wanted but fixable. I dry brushed the whole piece with a brown gel stain and that toned the red down to what I wanted. Then I did a light spray with a matte urethane and the finish was perfect for the 5 or 6 years that I had the piece - just sold it at a garage sale last summer. If the piece is perfect for you in every other way, you can alter the color.

Frieda, interesting what you say about Americans sliding around in social status. Is that a financial thing rather than 'breeding' (and I don't like that expresion either)? I remember watching an episode of Roseanne some years ago, where Dan has just lost his job and R says (or probably shouts) "We used to be a middle-class family, look at us now." I can here Hyacinth B snorting at that . . .but then the thing about poor HB is that she never quite gets things right. She tries far too hard! There is still certainly plenty of class divide/snobbery in the UK although I feel that since probably the 60's many people in the UK have gone out of their way to make out they come from a 'lower' social group than they actually do. I first met inverted snobbery when I went to college and was questioned closely as to what my father 'did'. This was often followed by "Oh, I suppose he has a car?" Well, yes we did have a family car I had never given the matter much thought, but it seemed to enrage my questioners. "My Dad's a miner (it was always a miner), he only rides a bike and he's proud of it." It was all very Jimmy Porter/angry young man of the period. You have a good ear for accents Frieda and must have noticed the difference in how English people speak. A great watering down between the classes . .. Princes William and Harry could almost be the boys next door. Of course some think our speech patterns resemble the Mid Atlantic tones of the popular DJ's and soon Estuary English, as spoken in the Thames Valley will take over the land. How about the stories by P G Wodehouse for the humour between the classes? Do you notice that whatever the situation it was always Jeeves or Beech,the Blandings butler who had all the answers and held all the cards. I don't think this was deliberate 'putting down' of the nobs, but I think it was something unsaid. Lord Emsworth, Bertie W, and all the other young asses and flighty girls that people the stories, couldn't function without this array of staff that ran their bathwater, told them what cuff-links to wear or sorted out their love lives. Re similarities between Cold Comfort Farm and I Capture the Castle. Except for the time in which the books are set I see litle comparison (and admit I haven't read CCF for years). Dodie S wrote I C the C while in the US, and although she went on to own a cottage in the prettiest village in Essex I don't think she had any particular feeling for the countryside. Her book does not contain many/any country characters. I don't know where Gibbons got her country info but she certainly managed to nail that particular 'type'. Up until about 10 years ago I knew several houses that could have stood in for CC Farm . . the sort of places where casual cruelty to animals was a part of everyday life and where it was wise to wipe your feet on leaving someones kitchen. Most of these properites have been gentrified and are bought by pop and football stars and change hands for millions of...