I've seen them growing in 3 places with little to no care that bear fruit, and have one in a big tub, myself. Sweet cherries are all but impossible, but sours do marginally ok here. Watch for the usual suspects- too wet of soil, tent worms, etc, and you'll probably do ok. If yo have a cooler microclimate site, that might help, too. Good for you for trying despite the naysayers! I planted black rasps which everyone said would fail and they've done really well for me for 5+ years.

Tam, what kind of sour cherries are you growing? Cherries are my favs!

root with you being a bit cooler, you'd probably do well with cherries! I have bush cherries- plain old non name in a tub, and 'joel' in the ground. I had 'jan' and 'joy' in ground, but they died couple years back. I'd be willing to try them again in a better draining spot. I also have 'Northstar', which is a sour dwarf tree, in a tub. I had 'compact stella' which is a sweet self pollinator that i got at broadwell's, so it was local, but it died last year after the wicked easter freeze. Undecided whether i want to try again with it or not. It was pretty but we'd not gotten much off it. I also lost a pear to that freeze/subsequent bad run of fireblight.

Before someone asks, the reason they're in tubs is at least 4 fold. 1. cherries like drainage and my clay just doesn't give much of it. 2. i wanted to keep them dwarfed. 3. it's my best sun by far, but very limited space, because is along the edge of the driveway that was a mutual turnaround before old butthead neighbors fenced, hence 4. portability -in case the fence ever comes down, which it probably won't, and we do move some of the more tender things to the basement for the winter. I have 10+ tubs in a row- alternating, half 18 gallon, half 32 gallon, with pears, cherries, figs, lotus, loganberries, loquat, contorted mulberry, trifoliate orange and a hip rose, plus one or 2 to use for tomatoes, etc. Most everything has done really well, with the exception of that one cherry and pear. Because the 6' fence is facing south it radiates warmth back to the plants and most seem to appreciate the protection. The big tubs mean the plants don't go thirsty as fast and get to a decent size, and are somewhat protected in winter from the cold. I tend to underplant everything with something else- i have strawberries in about 1/3 of the pots, as well as sedum, cerinthe, columbine, oregano, lithodora and hot tuna (chameleon plant). No use wasting that space.

Tammy - Contorted mulberry? With fruit? Where can I find one or three?

well, i hope it'll set some fruit this year- it sure has blooms aplenty if they don't get frozen (like last year). I got mine from edible landscaping in VA. I don't know if it'd take from cuttings, but you're welcome to try if you want. Probably slower, though. They've got lots of way cool ornamental edibles. I get a good many mulberries on a wildling in the back yard in mostly shade of all things.

So - tamelask, did your northstar in the tub die as well? I planted one northstar and two montmorency trees, one on dwarf and the other on semi-dwarf. I'll just have to wait and see. The local nurseryman where I bought the semidwarf montmorency said that it'll do fine and the agri office folks say it may last the season.

I'll give them all they need and a little TLC and hope for the best!

The northstar is still plugging away. Not as healthy as some of the other tub things, but it's doing fine. You'll probably be fine with montmorencies. I believe the other cherries i've seen have all been northstars based on the tree size- but down here it may naturally dwarf them more than normal, who knows? Up in PA cherries got huge- sours not as much, but still plenty big. Certainly having two types will help with pollination, even though with sours you really only need one.

I'm from PA too, near Punxatawney. We had a huge sour cherry tree.

We're from the Butler Co area- right near Moraine state park- little towns called Portersville/Prospect. Been here since '91. There's a lot of PA transplants down here. Search for the thread 'where are you from' or some such thing- lots and lots of posts.