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!

When I planted my orchard I was told the same thing for my zone, but I couldn't help myself. I have a Kristen and Gold cherry tree that have survived 4 and 10 winters respectively. I've tried Black and White Gold and Heldelfingen which suffered winterkill and died after several years. Last summer I harvested a few Gold cherries for the first time. Carmine Jewel, Juliette, Romeo and Cupid are dwarf sweet cherry varieties bred in Canada, that are supposed to be hardy. The availability in the US is limited - I've seen Carmine Jewel in the Gurneys catalog but not any of the other varieties, which are supposed to be sweeter.

cut all the dead wood out now to your lowest living bud. I put tangle foot on landscaping tape about two foot up on the trunk. That will keep the ants of the tree if there isn't any bridges like twine to steaks or other tree branches or such. The ants are protectors to the aphids because they like to eat the aphid honey doo. Without ants the ladybugs will eat them, and so will other good bugs. You need to figure out what kind of spray program you need. You should be spraying for fungus and bacterial canker at least a couple times a year. Best when applied right away after wet periods. Bacterial canker thrives in the warm moisture. You may have it already and that will cause die off on top too. look for split trunks and branches that have cracks. It might just be areas that look like sap is oozing out like bores. Fruit trees need to be taken care of in every season. I would mix up some water salable fertilizer and feed it now, but don't over feed it. Then mix in some 12 12 12 into the drip line of the trees on the ground. You need to get all that grass away from the drip lines and put some good mulch down. Mix the fertilizer into the mulch. Look up how to fertilize fruit trees on u tube. There is a formula that goes by trunk thickness. You know if your trees need to be fertilized by how long last years growth is. That's in those videos too. I watched every video I could find to figure out how to take care of my trees plus reading this forum. Its so much easier to watch someone.

Thank you alcan! I'll have to look into this.