Black Tartarian?

Can you help identify this Cherry tree? I was told that it is a Black Tartarian but I am not sure.
Thanks Oldude

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/karpes/DSCN1417.jpg

All sweet cherries are similar in their leaves so you can't tell much of anything from leaves. That said, the tree doesn't even look like a cherry to me, the leaves don't look shiny and look too closely-spaced. It could be the picture is misleading me, however.

Scott

looks like one of my nanking cherries rather than the other cherries I've seen

~Chills

Thanks for the help.
I did take a look at nanking cherry pictures and it looks exactly like them. I remember that the nursery had Sugar Sweet nanking cherries and I bet it got tagged wrong. Now my dilemma is to keep it or yank it out of the ground. I haven’t heard many good things about nakings.
Oldude

I planted one of those Sugar Sweet cherries. Its a nanking, and one which hasn't fruited for me in the 4 years I've had it. Darn thing is over 8 feet tall and easily 6 feet wide. I gave it a heavy trimming this spring and it will likley be pulled either this fall or next spring at the latest.

~Chills

Just jumping in here to try to help. Nankings are not self fertile - you need two different plants to produce fruit. Chills, I'll bet your plant blooms like crazy in the spring, and if it is a Nanking, is easily large enough to generate a lot of fruit if you have a pollinator. As to variety, my Nankings appear to branch a bit more than the one in the picture. Nanking leaves are slightly fuzzy, however. I also have a Korean cherry that I can't tell apart from the Nanking, but they are different species. There are a lot of different kinds of cherries. One thing though, if it is a black tartarian sweet cherry, if could still be a bit young to fruit. But keep in mind most sweet cherries need a pollinator.

I had 6 Nanking cherries (including the sugar sweet one) on a property which is only 1/8th acre. 4 of the 6 grew so closely they were touching. I started ripping them out last fall (1) and (3) more this spring/summer.


Sugar Sweet was trimmed hard this year (in summer after I had picked the dozen or so cherries the other bushes had produced). It may be removed this fall or next spring.

I doubt pollenation was an issue. Flowering was light before and heavy on all bushes after the easter freeze.

~Chills

Sorry, Chills, your previous posts did not indicate you had several nankings. I only have two, both in pots and only a couple of years old. This was the first year fruiting (I just got the second one last year) and I must have had about 40 fruits, which I thought was good considering the plant size and horrible weather during the flowering. Your Sugar Sweet not fruiting still suggests to me that it might be a cherry similar to nanking, but not cross fertile with nanking.

Oldude, when I googled "Sugar Sweet Nanking", I turned up only one relevant referance for Direct Gardening's offering of this varieity. The web site does say this is a "van type" sweet cherry that is self fertile. The web page I was looking at is below. Does your location offer enough chill hours for cherries to set fruit?

http://www.directgardening.com/detail.asp?pid=5543

Krowten....I get enough chill hours and in addition to the nanking cherries I have a Northstar, an Apricot and two plums (and my neighbor behind me) has an ornamental cherry (and we have 1/8th acre lots). The leaves on the Sugar Sweet are virtually identical to the Nanking cherry leaves (well they might be slightly larger than the leaves on one or two of the nanking cherries, but the leaves are certainly not the largest of the nankings).

I'm trying to decide if I should just remove them (the last 2) or if I should try grafting Northstar onto them.

They are also listed in the Fruit and Nut inventory (a book published a few years back) and they are only listed as available from the Direct Gardening family of companies.

~Chills

Your cherry should fruit, if it is a Sugar Sweet, which the article claims is self fertile. If it has never had a single cherry, I would wonder if it is what they told you it was. Things get mislabeled quite a bit. Do people generally get cherries in the areas around you? Is it possible the blossoms froze in the spring? That happens a lot. Those are the only two options I can think of. If it is four years old, it should be starting to bear a) if it is getting fertilized, b) if the blossoms are not getting frozen.

I don't know anything about Nanking cherries and why one would grow them, but I recommend a semi-dwarf lapins. it is self fertile and trouble free. Mine semi-dwarf flowered and produced a few fruits the first year. It is bred for cold climates and to fertilize other trees like Bing. Turns out you don't need the Bing. The lapins produces sweet fruit like the Bing. It is in the Fruit and Nut inventory also.

This message was edited Aug 19, 2007 6:59 PM

I am now leaning towards letting the little tree alone just to see how it does. I really should not have planted a cherry since I live right on the gulf coast. I have plenty of property to experiment and I knew it would be a challenge at best to grow a cherry in this climate.
My father grew two cherry trees and they did fine but I believe these were choke cherries. They made tiny ¼ diameter very sweet cherries that we enjoyed as kids, but I have not been able to find this variety here locally.
Thanks again Oldude

pajaritomt, Nankings are bush cherries that are very winter hardy, yet require only about 300 chill hours to set fruit. I started them because I will likely move in the next couple of years and wanted to keep them in pots to take with me. They do well in pots.

Chills and oldude, my Nankings leaves look like those in the initial pic, but the shape of the plant is very different. More branching, which I realize might not mean much. I'll try to get a pic so you can compare.

Whoa! A cherry in New Iberia, La. No wonder you are having problems. I didn't pick up on that the first time. I grew up in New Orleans and spent quite a bit of time hanging out in bayou country. I never saw a cherry tree, though! You deserve commendation for trying. Lots of stonefruits have trouble in South Louisiana. Since your father was successful in growing a chokecherry, why don't you try one of those? Below is a link to the DG page on the chokecherry and apparently 6 vendors have it for sale. Since you know chokecherries work, why not try one?
I am sure your county agent can tell you more about cherries in Louisiana. Maybe he/she knows a kind that will work?

I promised a pic of my branching nanking. Hope this helps.