I'd highly recommend you take the time to give yourself a quick primer on species, cultivars, specific epithets, and how all of that pertains to sexual reproduction vs clonal reproduction.

If all you want is Prunus attention, then yes, You are find. If you want a specific growth habit or color (such as Yoshino, Kwanzan, or Snow Fountain) then no, seed will not be sufficient*.

* it may be sufficient. Grow enough seed, some are going to be like the tree it came from. There's a bell curve...true to type simply means that odds are, the seedlings will be like the parents. But even in true to type populations, you have outliers at the ends of the bell curve.

This is a long and involved subject to cover adequately. I'm not going to even try, because what I'd call adequate is about a month in an upper level college course.

I will say, there are no lack of books that cover this better than I could. It be time to build a library.

Ok so to sum it up, trees with cultivars won't reliably become true from seed and neither do pure species trees because they might have cross pollinated and hybridized with another plant in the same genus. So the only way to achieve something exactly like the parent plant is by cuttings. Is it possible to take cuttings of a cherry and make it root? Are they easy to root? Thinking of taking cuttings from my prunus pendula 'plena rosea'.

The answer is that it depends on what type of flowering cherry variety, to a great degree. The more simple ones, without any showy special attributes, are likelier to grow truer to seed.

In virtually all cases, cherries grown from seed are not going to have exactly the same genetics as their parent, but their phenotype most often can still be the same.

Species cherry varieties are going to produce identical looking offspring (if the flower wasn't pollinated by a different cherry variety).

So the only way to achieve something exactly like the parent plant is by cuttings.

==>> or grafting ... ken

Yea so in other words one should never grow anything from seed if they expect it to be exactly the same as the parent.

And yea I know grafting is another way but I don't graft so I didn't even mention that.

Btw does anyone know if the cherry cultivar prunus pendula 'plena rosea' will root from cuttings?

Pretty much ANY woody plant can be propagated from cuttings, provided the timing and rooting conditions are right.

And fwiw, just to restate what has already been said, growing a species tree from seed (not a cultivar, not a hybrid) is very likely to produce offspring that will look virtually the same as the parent tree. A great many trees in commercial production are grown in this manner.

Gardengal, I am really hoping that but can you tell me what you think on these two things about the cuttings and seed coming true.

So for the cuttings, yes any tree can technically be rooted from cuttings but there are some that are very difficult to root and some that root but don't reliably survive. Like fruit trees many are grafted because cuttings usually don't work. Also same for Japanese maples. So does that also apply for this cherry 'plena rosea'? How come many sold in stores are top grafted at 6 feet if they can just propagate it from cuttings?

Then for the seed coming true.. what if there was another plant in with the same genus-different species nearby? Isn't it possible that they cross pollinate and the seed taken from the parent plant be a hybrid? Like say a nursery is selling pinus thunbergii seedlings grown from seed. But they also happen to have a pinus mugo nearby in their field as well. Won't the seed be a hybrid between a pinus thunbergii and mugo?

Cuttings will work - ornamental and fruiting cherries trees tend to be grafted to limit size and increase hardiness but they can grow quite easily on their own roots. As will Japanese maples....they are just very slow to propagate by that method so most growers opt for grafting rather than cuttings.

Not all tree species will hybridize amongst themselves naturally - there usually needs to be a very close genotype association for that phenomenon to occur or it must be done manually. The chances of that happening are really quite limited. Uness you are dealing with oaks, then all bets are off :-))

I see I see... so cuttings grown from 'plena rosea' will be less hardier? And gets more bigger than the grafted 'plena rosea'?

I can't confirm that but it is possible. Or not :-))

Maybe you should try growing from seed since it is a species cherry and will most likely turn out the same.

Them being clones cutting raised weeping cherries will have the genetically determined hardiness of the source plant - there is nothing about the process that would be expected to affect the genetics of the material used. At least as far as it pertains to cold tolerance.

But any resulting plants will probably have to be trained to produce a single trunk with an elevated crown, from which the pendent branches can then cascade. In fact occasional Japanese cherries (and purple-leaved plums) of kinds most often seen as clearly defined trees showing instead noticeably shrubby growth habits here in my area have been assumed by a few of us to have been grown from cuttings. With the lack of visible inter-stocks or stocks serving as confirmation.

Also I think when 'Kanzan' for instance began to be rooted from cuttings on a commercial scale very high amounts of hormones were being employed to produce the desired response. Incidentally I believe 'Snofozam' has also been mass produced from cuttings, so there you have this being done with much repeated success using a weeping form.

Here you go Heruga, Sam Brown Nursery lists Prunus subhirtella plena rosea, own root. This is a wholesale nursery and these are field-grown trees, so clearly they are commercially produced on their own roots. Last year you asked the same question about this selection on its own root and someone gave you an accurate response, did you forget?

Eh if I have to go through all the work of training it to let it a weeping habit then it might not be worth it. I thought they have a naturally weeping habit. Sam, sam brown nursery looks like a wholesale nursery and I can't buy wholesale... and I don't remember that but I'll check my old posts

The weeping is partly why it has to be trained. But deciduous trees of many kinds are routinely trained during nursery production to get desired shapes.

I have sown Prunus sargentii from seed. Seeds came from OMC Seedstore in Lithuania and were sown in January 2016. Two seeds germinated in late March 2017. Upon checking the other seeds (I believe 12 in total) I discovered these were empty or had rotten.

When sowing Prunus sargentii you need to realize that the seeds first need a warm period of about 3-5 months (temp. 63--70 degrees Fahrenheit), then a cold period of about 3 months (temp. 41 degrees F. or lower). Germination is erratic and another warm-cold cycle may be necessary for further germination.

When not grown in the direct vicinity of other ornamental cherries that flower around the same time Prunus sargentii will come fairly true from seed.

Cuttings of ornamental cherries: in the Netherlands Prunus incisa (Fuji cherry) and cultivars are in the last few years more and more propagated through cuttings as this is much cheaper than grafting.

Nice seedlings. So I guess it can be done. Had to have been a very rewarded feeling... Well anyway, I'm actually reconsidering growing 'plena rosea' from cuttings and go through the trunk training process. But before that.. does anyone know whether this cultivar 'plena rosea' has a more upright habit and less wider in spread compared to the species prunus pendula? I am wondering because many online sites state that this tree gets taller than wide, all the plena roseas I see planted around here whether grafted or own roots seem to be much taller than wide, and I also have a pic of a massive one from longwood gardens that seems to be much taller than wide. Can anyone confirm?