The climate in New Zealand…would it be like Zone 8-10 or do you get ’cold’ weather in your Winters? I live in southern California and as you know, we dont get much ’rain’ let alone temperatures below 50* almost all year long. i visited Campbell Town Scotland once and that temperture remained cool and damp most of the year…(I was informed)…and though i always wanted to ’see’ Australia and New Zealand, i never got an invite so i don’t know the climate. a great encouragement to guys like us is to watch videos on Youtube about growing Food Forests!!!!…and those guys amazing success about all types of ideas!!!!!

My advice is to stick it out for a while. Sweet cherries take a while to fruit. It may take a couple more years before your trees are in full production. But sooner or later, with that many cherry trees, you are going to have enough fruit to feed the critters and yourself too. And there is nothing better than cherries right off the tree. I live on the West Coast, far from you, so maybe others will have better advice to give, but I think your critter problems are, if not solvable, at least controllable. I use Mylar tape to scare away birds. It isn't foolproof, but it deters enough of them so that I can get a crop. Some people use bird netting, which is probably more effective but may require you to disentangle the occasional bird from the netting. You can kill aphids and white flies organically by spraying occasionally with a mixture consisting of 1 Tbsp. of Dawn liquid dish soap and 1 cup of vegetable oil per gallon of water. I don't have a squirrel problem. I will defer to others about how to solve that. Some of the solutions I've seen on this site involve the use of controls that aren't permitted in populated areas, but there are perhaps other things you can try, and maybe the squirrels aren't your principal problem. In other words, maybe if you deter the birds and kill the aphids, you can share with the squirrels. Don't give up yet. Nimzo

We normally graft either to Colt rootstock or Gisela if you can get it, so it seems plausible. John S PDX OR

Hello Grafters Remember... Mazzard (Prunus avium) or Mahaleb (P. mahaleb) seedlings. is used in sweet cherry growing region, Missouri is mostly zone 5 & 6, also Canada, BC is using these seedlings. Alberta is not included, [too cold in winter] these seedling would not survive here, they are rated for zone 4, we are zone 3, this is why I use the hardier Pincherry , Sour Evans Cherry , or Amur Cherry root stock. I will announce our annual scion wood exchange in a separate thread. Konrad