Steve: You might not be as lucky as you think. Trees received in a "trade" or from sources such as E-Bay, are often seedlings that someone grew out. They may grow up to be trees, perhaps quite large trees, but may never have cherries or anything else. That is the reason why most serious fruitgrowers buy grafted trees from reliable nurseries. You will find this out for yourself in a few years; I am just trying to save you some time. If you want to try to grow cherries of any kind in containers you need dwarfing rootstocks and grafted varieties. There is no reason to wait all those years to find this out. Buy good nursery stock, not trades. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I dont think cherry tree cuttings can be rooted reliably, only cloned thru grafting. Start with a rootstock, plant it, then learn to graft if you'd like a clone. -Eric ----------------------------------------------------

Sandy, I can uderstand how you came to your idea, but have to reiterate that I think it isn't ideal. Again, I would put a shrub, or several shrubs there in the corner, because a tree is going to grow into/over the sidewalk, blocking it with branches, and gnerally getting in the way. If it's a BIG tree, then it may well also grow long enough branches that it needs to be trimmed away from the side of the garage. A shrub in that location will maybe get wide enough to run up against the sidewalk or possibly the driveway, but the right one won't. With a shrub, you can know beforehand about how wide it will get, but most trees aren't so obliging - there are exceptions, but... If you want an evergreen shrub, do you want a tall one (4-8') or will a couple of shorter ones (2-5') do, or do you want both heights? Either, coupled with an tallish evergreen tree by itself in the middle of the lawn, would give enough visual mass to balance the addition. Me, I think I might go for a mix, maybe a small or medium evergreen to provide winter mass, and something like a butterfly bush to give summer interest. You can keep Buddleias trimmed to the size you want, and in fact, should trim them in summer after a bloom flush to get better reblooming. If you don't want to cut a shrub back hard in the spring, and a couple of times in the summer, then a crepe myrtle could be very nice. Since you can chose cultivars that range in height from 3' to 40', and colors from white, red, purple and pink, you have a wide variety to select from. A rhododendron or a camellia would also give you an evergreen, with flowers in winter/spring, with azaleas at the base for lower fill-in. Selecting for height and color could give a very nice effect with either or both. The camellia can be trimmed, if you really want a formal effect at the corner. For a taller evergreen tree, out in the lawn, I might go with a conifer - NOT a Leyland or something that will get 40-60' - but an interesting one with a good form or maybe a variegated or color selection. I would LOVE to have a weeping Atlas or Alaskan blue cedar growing in my lawn! You could also go with another magnolia, or with a holly - some of them can get pretty tall. There is certainly enough room for a tree in the lawn, unless, of course, you like the expanse of it and don't WANT another tree out there....

I agree with georgez5il, may we call you George, that cherry is best propagated by grafting but....it is the time of the year for an interesting experiment. When I had a greenhouse and was doing propagation experiments I found easily propagated woody cuttings like Poplar species were best rooted, in my opinion, at mid-winter in the dark. Should I have wanted to try cherry I would have taken cuttings as George suggested now to mid-December and put them in clear rooting containers like plastic cups so I could easily check for roots and covered them with Glad Press and Seal and put them in the dark and checked for roots after several weeks or a few months.