Grow Your Own Magazine

is anyone growing a stella cherry tree. we planted a tree about 12 months ago and now have fruit on it, they are small and slowly ripening is this the norm for a young tree and when will it start to fully grow and produce fruit.

I bought a bare rooted dwarf stella cherry tree 3 months ago. Grows to a maximum of 7ft. I have planted it in a black bucket for this year before deciding on its final planting position next year. I do not expect any fruit off it this year but would hope for some after 12 months.

This is my Stella's third year with me....I have yet to see a cherry on it!!!!!

At the moment it is full of leaves...again.....but not a cherry to be seen. It's going for firewood next year if I don't start to see something before next summer!

We've had a Stella cherry tree for about 20 years. We have had some extremely good years, and some very bad.

Hawthorn, if your cherries are still small and starting to ripen, they will be part of the 'June drop'. They need to swell before they ripen. You should still get some though.

Ours is roughly fan trained against the garage, so it's not taking up too much space, so intend keeping it.

Stella was the first self-fertile cherry. There are better varieties available now. Cherokee is one less prone to splitting.

Last year was a dreadful year. With the heavy rain while the cherries were ripening they tended to split. We had netting over the tree. It might have kept the blackbirds out, but it let the wasps in. So for the first year in ages we didn't have a cherry.

I would persevere if I were you. I've given the 'down side' above, but the upside is picking a bowl of wonderful luscious black cherries, sitting and eating them.

valmarg