3X1Cherry(Lapins/Rainier/Montmorency)Mazzard

Here is a link that might be useful: .raintreenursery

thanks murky- I had seen that tree but it not ideal for me as I already have ranier and if i understood correctly, Montmorency is a sour cherry.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thanks.

OK, it does meet your stated criteria though. Please let us know what others you've seen and dismissed so we don't post those links as well.

Thanks Murky. Other than a tree sold by Stark (which remains an option if nothing else is available) I think the raintree tree you referred to is pretty much the only other one I have seen. I guess, I assumed by stating that it should be a sweet cherry tree, that ruled out the raintree tree you referred to, but I can see why that would not be clear as it has both sweet and tart.

Thanks again. Gerry.

Gerry:

You won't find a lot of fans of multi-graft here. Usually the reason is it's hard to find the right match for your area from a mail-order nursery, and one of the varieties usually dominates the others and takes all the vigor.

I'm more inclined to plant three small trees close together, 18" apart of the varieties I really want. The root competition helps to stunt their growth and with summer pruning you can keep them any size.

Applenut

thanks applenut.
2 qs.

why do you recommend the pruning to be done in the summer over other seaons- say fall or winter.

2nd q- can i get away with planting 2 dwarf cherry trees in a half whiskey barrel pot ( i have zero space left in the ground)

For cherry, try the 3-N-1 (actually 4-N-1) at the link to Bay Laurel Nursery cherry trees below. They have ASHMEAD'S KERNAL apples, too (http://www.baylaurelnursery.com/order/clicksite.cgi?cart_id=&xm=on&ftr=Apples&p=Apples ).

BLN has been in business 30 years, and is a Dave Wilson Nursery (davewilson.com) retailer. I don't have any experience with their products yet (first shipment of bare roots from them awaited in January), but they are quite knowledgeable, and score high in customer service with me, so far. Their Website itself contains a wealth of information.

--jstover

Here is a link that might be useful: Bay Laurel Nursery cherry tree page

Gerry,

"2 qs.
why do you recommend the pruning to be done in the summer over other seaons- say fall or winter.

2nd q- can i get away with planting 2 dwarf cherry trees in a half whiskey barrel pot ( i have zero space left in the ground)"

Summer pruning controls vigor and helps the tree invest energy into creating new fruiting spurs and buds instead of directing energy into apically dominant leaders, ie, you can maintain a tree a certain size by pruning in the summer months. Pruning during the dormant season encourages a flush of laterals bellow the cut in the spring.

I am not sure if the gisela root stock will be happy in a barrel, but I think that is the one you probably want to try if you are space limited

cheers
Sam

Thanks Sam.

So in NYC, summer pruning would be when? after the fruit ripen? august? september?

For Summer Pruning, cut the tree to size so you can reach the whole thing when you thin the fruit in the spring. This will also help you to see what type of branches are fruiting branches. Usually here I only need to prune one more time after the worst heat of summer is over and the trees have a vigorous flush of growth. You need to do this before fall dormancy starts to set in to gain the dwarfing benefit.

Winter pruning is reserved for housekeeping such as removing dead wood, crossed branches, and fireblight cankers that are difficult to see with the leaves on the tree.

Applenut

We get all our rains during the winter, therefore, cherries and apricots are seldom pruned at that time because of great possibility of diseases when pruning.

The best pruning to keep your trees to proper height in our place is right after harvest. By pruning right after harvest, it is usually drier and there is very little disease pressure. But most of all, with smaller canopy after harvest, there would not be a lot of photosynthesis to make the roots grow bigger, and hence, the tree would remain small. Compared to pruning long after the leaves have fallen, roots would have amassed tremendous amounts of food reserves that even if you prune more than half the wood during the winter, you would easily end up with a bigger tree.

I have a 24-n-1 cherry tree. Grafting cherry is very easy, it is almost as easy as pruning. When my trees were younger, I opted to graft rather than prune. If you are required to prune anyway, grafting is almost the same way. Multi-grafted trees are very easy to balance, you just continue to regraft until the tree is balanced. Regraft the less vigorous cultivars over the more vigorous cultivars, and if you do this for a couple of seasons, the tree would balance out. Multi-grafted or not, you will have to balance your tree anyway for better look and facilitate harvest. You can do it by regrafting, by pruning or both. You never leave a tree alone and magically it will look fantastic for you without lifting a finger. It doesn't matter if you have 500-n-1 tree or a single cultivar tree.

joe thanks for your advice. I am going to try and give grafting a go this spring as I have no more room to plant new varieties.

I am hoping to graft 1-2 varieties on to my existing stella and ranier cherries, cox orange and golden russet apple, and greengage and coes golden drop plum

where do you buy your cherry (and other fruit varities)scionwood from and which method of grafting do you recommend for a beginner?

Almost any graft will work with Cherry. The trick is the timing. You will have to wait until the unopened buds are swelling and are showing pink color at the tip. And never graft when it is raining. It is better to wait until it is a dry day and do your grafting.

I love to do whip and tongue graft on cherry, but it is one of the more difficult one to do if you are a beginner, unless you are handy with the knife. The best for a beginner is bark grafting. Here's a sample that you can do for cherries also:
Bark Grafting, Pear example
Bark Grafting, Citrus example

Or you can also do Cleft Grafting:
Cleft Grafting, Plum example

And here's a sample of T-budded cherries that I did several years ago:
T-budded Cherries

Result of Cherry T-budding a year later:
T-budded Cherries, 1 year later

I get most of my scionwood from exchange. For example, the Santa Clara Valley chapter of California Rare Fruit Growers is having a scionwood exchange at 2nd Sturday of January each year. This time it falls on January 12, 2008.

there could be some exchanges with some members online. Just contact them.