A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 starting cherry trees from seed

How do you start a cherry seed?

Lorena

I think they need to have a cold spell first,
then plant in situ.
ive got one which grew from seed in my garden,
it took a couple of years to fruit, and the cherry's are very small.
not worth growing realy.
be prepared for a lot of pruning mine just keeps on growing, and now its lifting my path, the roots need to be kept away from structures.
if you want fruit your better off getting one which has been grafted, then you will have a lot more fruit and less pruning.

I believe markr is right, you can either plant the seeds outside in the fall, or put them in moist sand in a baggie and put them in the refrigerator for 3 months or so, before returning them to normal temperatures.

Okay, I just looked it up in one of my plant propagation books, and they say cold temps for 3-4 months. Also, you need to crack the seeds, either before or after the cold temps. plant shallowly after germination begins, and set out after 2 months, or put indoors or in a greenhouse.

I start my cherry seed in the fall.Put them in the ground and cover with sawdust. And yea they need cold stratification to come up.Planting a cherry seed is like plantin a peach seed it will have fruit but not the same variety you planted. It has to be grafted/budded.Its best to just buy whichever varity you wanted

Also most cherry trees today are grafted....

Can someone like me Graft a cherry tree? I have a HUGE on thats about 30 years old. It is huge, with no Suckers or anything coming off of it.

Ninni

actually most cherry trees are budded. even though its the same principle there is a difference in it.is the cherry tree you got a seedling[did you or someone plant the seed]?or is it already a certain variety?never heard of anyone budding/grafting a 30yr.old seedling but that for sure dont mean it cant be done and would live.most of the time cherry seedlings are growed for 1-2 yrs and then budded.

thanks, think I'll just get one that's started from a nursery... I would love to have one that had different varieties grafted to it. we live in cherry country... I mean they are everywhere just 30 miles east of us, huge commercial orchards some are even organic... and were planted along with apples, plums, apricots, and peaches when the first settlers came.

thank you everyone

Does anyone know of a truly sweet red cherry? I've noticed that almost all sweet cherries are "black" cherries, while the reds are almost always "pie" cherries.
I am growing a Montmorency, the description says "good for pies or eating fresh." It doesn't say it's great eaten fresh, like they say about bings and others.

I haven't found a picture, but Edible Landscaping ( www.eat-it.com ) describes Sweet September cherry as a "large, sweet red fruit ripening in August and into September" Their other sweet cherries are described as either yellow, dark red, or black.

In all the searching for info on Sweet September, I came upon a reference for another cherry called Craig's Crimson that is reputed to be possibly the finest sweet cherry of all. So of course I had to order one.

Craig\'s Crimson Cherry

I planted some suckers from my mother-in-laws cherry tree(tree was about 30 years old), last year I had a few cherries and they were the same as the mother tree.

When I was a kid My parents had a house with a VERY BIG cheery tree. The trunk was over 3 feet in Diameter and we had to go on the roof of the garage to pick the cheeries of the tree. at least the ones that did`nt fall off the tree. On average we picked over 6 bushells and the birds\bugs could`nt eatt all the ones on the ground. Too bad I don`t know what kind it was but they were BIG cheeries like bing in size.

I got 2 trees not from seed but almost. I got them from the Arbor foundation which is about stick size or about 2 feet tall. they are now 4 feet tall and need alot of pruning which to me is no big deal esp since we also have mature juneiper bushes (more like small wide trees)

Beautiful property we bought over 2 years ago but most of the plants\grounds were neglected. talk about alot of work but it`s getting there and starting to look really good.