Northern: I have Balaton, North Star,Sure Crop and Mesabi tart cherry in my orchard. Balaton is the best for fresh eating as very dark purple fruit and the sweetest tart cherry I have ever tasted. My daughter will eat them off the tree but not the other tart cherry varieties. Only bad news on Balaton is that in youth it is slow to come into bearing and does not yield as heavily as some of the others. My North Star is perhaps my favorite as very heavy bearing and I like the fact that I can easily keep it trimmed to 8' in height so easy to cover with netting when the fruit ripens. My best yield on my North Star was 28 quarts (measured after pitting). Sadly it now is full of bacterial blight the past 3 years and I cannot get it under control. I tried copper and had no luck. I also have Surecrop from Stark Nursery. Appears to be an amarelle type as has yellow flesh and a hot pink skin color. Very juicy and cooks up nice. It was very slow to bear as waited 5 years for the first crop. My Mesabi was an accident. It got shipped to the nursery I work at by mistake so it was free for the taking. It is a young tree and growing well. Picked the first crop off it last year and bloomed well this year. The flavor,yield and hardiness are fine. I have not had it long enough to comment further on it. A friend in Minnesota grows Mesabi and tells me the only issue for him is that the fruit is very thin walled (fleshed) compared to other tart cherries. Another friend who grows tart cherries (5 varieties for his U-pick orchard) tried it and told me the same. I don't mind since the tree was free and I mix them with my other varieties anyway after pitting. The BEST yielding tart cherry I have come across is Sweet Cherry Pie (TM) now released thru Bailey Nursery in Minnesota. I sampled it 23 years ago while visiting Bill Eubank (his selection) near River Falls WI. Bears heavily at a young age with fantastic yields. A friend trialed this cherry at his orchard and found it usually out yielded all the other commercial varieties he grows in tart cherries. It is officially out on the market this year. Since you are in Minnesota you should be able to get one at any garden center that carries fruit trees from Bailey Nursery.

I have read that in this instance that people can do two grafts. The native variety being the most hardy and strongest rooting, then a short intermediary piece which can bridge between the native and fruiting varieties. Can anyone assist? Or know someone who can? I have cut down a large native cherry and would like to graft lapins and stella to the sprouts which are sure to come up this spring. "example taken from plum/almond stone fruit grafting" - " Also (and this is where the fun starts) most fruit trees in the Prunus genus are sometimes compatible with each other: almonds, apricots, nectarines, peaches, and plums all are compatible for grafting, but occasionally it's complicated. For example, some plum rootstock is not compatible with peaches or nectarines; and some almonds require an intermediate step before grafting onto some plum rootstocks."

Bird cherry is not an actual cherry. It is quite different tree, it grew in Siberia during my childhood. I love how it smells. It tastes differently than any cherry, and is about 8 millimeters in diameter (1/3 Inch maximum). Here are pictures: http://slavyanskaya-kultura.ru/images/07be4714774672xxl.jpg http://slavyanskaya-kultura.ru/images/33(7).jpg Here is a link that might be useful: More pictures

tammy - yeah.....we've had some mid 30's here in Palm Springs which is quite rare for November in the desert - this must be some artic blast we are getting! But the mangos I just planted last month are small enough that I stuck wire tomato cages over them and then plastic -mini hothouses - similar to your plastic house - didn't your hubby put that up? Don't be mad at my projecting into the future, but what will you do when your mango family outgrows the crib....or will you trim their arms and heads so they still fit the bed???? :) mangobeagle