You could do 2-gal for one year. Put aluminum foil shiny side out on the pot if its getting too hot. I would plan on grafting another variety to it next spring if you want to keep it. Put your son's skills to good use :-) Most varieties will pollinate Cox, just make sure its not a triploid variety. Scott

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).

Now I'm confused. Everywhere I've been says AR Black doesn't pollinate other trees and Stark doesn't list it as a pollinator for any of their trees (mine is a Stark). And there they have a Granny Smith and AR Black 2in1 listed as self-pollinating. I wouldn't worry too much about Stark's claims about specific pollinators. I have a S-D AR Black and dwarf McIntosh and Cortland niether are listed for the Black yet it bears very heavily. I think as long as they bloom at the same time (mine do) you're fairly safe if they don't have sterile pollen. Stark used to use a bloom time chart. AR Black is OK but it's not that great fresh off the tree. It needs storage time to soften up and get some flavor. If you have damaged fruit it doesn't last long enough. But the good fruit last a long time and is very good looking. Also the hardness of the fruit on the tree seems to make them somewhat resistant to the bugs where you may get a couple pristine apples even if you have bug problems. I don't think I've ever tried it in a pie, but if I like it there must be some tartness to it (I hate Delicious). I can't help with whether those will work for you. The AR Black should but I've heard it's really pushing it to get a Granny Smith apple tree ripened around here. Being 2 zones lower should make it OK for you. Stark also has a 2in1 called Double Delicious if you're into those. They're who I use because they're close so I figure the trees will be used to the climate. Their trees seem to not grow out of bounds of what they claim and they do tend to bear early. Search "espalier". You could have quite a few trees if you did that. My McIntosh and Cortland take up a fence width about 15' long and about 5' high. The Cortland doesn't try to outgrow those bounds, but I have to prune the McIntosh quite a bit.

Hi Brandon, yes you're right about the Freyburg which I'll have to replace this year. Annoying but hopefully my other 5 (cider) apple trees I bought are going to produce the correct fruit. I'll assume that the parent tree has taken over the grafts and produced fruit similar to what I was trying to replace (once again, annoying). Interesting to note that both grafts pictured in photo 4 have the same fruit and so both appear to have "failed". Perhaps it is because the scion wood was taken from the "Freyburg" tree before it had fruited for the first time? Possibly if my original Freyburg tree was taken over by the rootstock then maybe it is not a suitable source for taking scion wood from? It would be interesting to actually know the reason why this has happened and I'm hopeful that the other grafts of the Cox's will be successful. Dave