aerialz: You are correct that nearly all cherry trees sold by nurseries are grafted. (Although budding is also a technique that can be used to propogate cherry trees). The graft should be visible as a suture a few inches above where the roots begin to appear at the bottom of the tree. If you look carefully you should be able to see where these two components (rootstock and scion) were joined and grew together. The graft should always remain above the soil line when a grafted tree is planted to take advantage of the qualities imparted by the rootstock. If you plant a grafted tree too deep, it is possible to bury the graft, at which point the scion may also begin to throw roots. The best way I can think of to avoid planting another sweet cherry would be to learn to graft, and add an additional variety to your existing tree. You may think grafting is way beyond your capabilities, but in fact it is not if you give it a good try. Grafting advice and scion exchanges are frequently offered right here on Gardenweb. Of course, I am the one who told you it is likely to be hard to raise sweet cherries in your particular climate, but you never know when you might get a good year a good crop. You will, however, have to watch for diseases, dormant spray your trees, and prune out disease cankers when and if they appear. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Yikes! didn't want to drown them, but they seemed dry to me... I did take them out of the water, shook off the excess and wrapped the roots up in plastic bags...it's supposed to stop snowing late tonight, hopefully the soil will dry out a bit so i can plant tomorrow. I thought about heeling them into my nursery bed, but they're calling for a low of 20 tonight, and they've all broken bud. THey're from Gurney's, and the trees look really nice. Don't want to plant them in their permanent spot because it's been snowing/raining for 5 days straight, and i just hate the idea of working such wet soil....they're going into one end of the garden i broke sod on last year, and i wanted to do a bit of ammending, too. I live on a glacial sand moraine, my next-door neighbor is a gravel pit, excessively well-drained is an understatement. MAN oh man am I glad I didn't order the other 10 trees yet!!! THanks!

I would suggest same as konrad -- cut branches way way back to about a foot from the trunk, allow new sprouts to come out of the "stumps" this season, then next spring try grafting some good tasting varieties to the sprouts. The tree will look goofy for a few years, but after 6 or 7 years it will look almost normal again and you'll have a great crop of great tasting cherries of whatever varieties you like. There are a lot of good online resources about how to do this. Look up stephenhayesuk on YouTube as I know he's got more than one video about "grafting over" an old tree (in his case it's with apples but the concept for cherries is the same).

Ichoudhury: All commercially sold cherry trees are budded or grafted. What has led you to believe that the trees you are looking at are not? Lowe's and Home Depot should be publicly flogged for selling cherry varieties like Bing in Georgia, where they have zero chance of producing edible cherries. A softer variety like Lapins would give you your best shot, but even that won't be easy in your climate. Decent sweet cherries are hard to grow in the southeast and mid-atlantic. As you shop around, be conscious of the significant differences in cherry rootstocks, which will determine the size of your tree. For most backyard growers, dwarfing rootstocks like the Gisela series are more practical than the older types like Mazzard, which can grow trees that are 35 feet tall. You may not be able to find trees on dwarfing rootstocks locally, and HD and Lowe's won't even know the difference, but you can shop around online until you find a mailorder tree on a rootstock of your choosing. It would be well worth the time and effort to do so. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA