I too am in PA and wanted a Rainier but not sure how it would take in this climate. Instead I purchased a White Gold on Gisela 5 from Raintree last spring as it is a gold cherry with a red blush so I am hoping it is somewhat similar to a Rainier. The taste is supposed to be great. I am container growing my tree in a 20-25 gallon container. It's done very well so far and is a little over 6 ft. I haven't done any pruning yet. I just repotted it in a 5-1-1 mix of pine bark fines, peat, and perlite with Fruit Trees Alive organic fertilizer and pruned half of the roots off (a week ago) and now the leaf buds are all opening beautifully and I think we are going to get some fruit this year. It seemed to take to the new mix and root pruning surprisingly well. I will probably have to top prune it down a little after the end of this growing season.

This orchard in North Georgia http://www.mercier-orchards.com/pages/ContactUs.aspx from 10-4 weekends the next three weeks has pick your own sweet cherries from their orchard with about 12 varieties and about 100 cherry trees total. Trust me, any fruit person will be impressed if you visit this orchard whether for cherries, blueberries, apples, etc... From what i have learned on this forum i tried to pick the cherries which were near leaves/branches getting full sun, darker the riper for the "bing" type sweet cherries, etc. but since they really don't use pesticides you can mouth sample in the field to taste for sweetness (brix?). But fruitnut, when looking at a cluster of cherries some will be dark red (peak brix and ripe?) and others slightly lighter red (not quite peak brix?) and thus are your experiments showing that ripe cherries today won't have as high a brix as ripe cherries in say a few weeks when the tree hit peak brix? I sampled from the sunned, shaded and partial sun sections of the same sweet cherry trees and found if all were dark black they were all deliciously sweet and equal in my opinion. I will return in a couple weeks to pick again to see if they seem any sweeter. Does it matter what time of day you pick the sweet cherries or just as long as they are sweet and not going too soft that is as good as it gets? They had hormone traps to catch bugs instead of using sprays and apparently there aren't enough bird, deer, squirrels, etc. in the area to eat enough cherries to hurt overall production! The cherry trees were pruned to be no more than 8 feet tall , they had irrigation available and didn't seem to have any special mulch under the trees (grass in between rows and bare ground under the trees since nothing will grow in the shade). PS- the cherries off the tree were better than anything i have ever purchased at the local grocery store. Fruitnut, have you ever tested grocery store cherry brix?

You don't need 4 in 1 sweet cherries these days. You can grow Stella, Lapins, and a few other self pollinating varieties that should be hardy enough for your area. The biggest problem, as with anywhere in the east, is fruit that cracks from rain. A near ripe cherry will split with even a light rain. You can get a 4 in 1 if that is what you want, but you don't need it if all you want are sweet cherries.

There are a lot of points to make here - do a lot of research: 1. DO NOT get Bing or Rainer - they are not suited for our climate (they will split/crack and the fruit will be ruined). 2. Instead, the following are great self-fertile sweet cherries appropriate for NJ - Black Gold; White Gold (substitute for Rainer); and Benton (earlier ripening - in case you get the others). 3. Many online nurseries (mail-order) will ship them 4-6'. You want to look and see if you can still get them mailed - Schlabach, Adams County Nursery, etc. Raintree and One Green World. I recommend getting them on Gisella-6 rootstocks (dwarfing rootstocks); the issue of best rootstocks to get is highly controversial. Do a lot of keyword searching, etc. Good luck.