Cherry Tree

I've recently seen cherry trees in my local supermarket. They are about 5 foot tall and come bare rooted. I'm just wondering does anyone know how fast it would grow and if it would be suitable for a big pot (I know the ground would be way better but I have no space to directly plant it in the ground.

thanks

What planting zone do you live in?

Either 8 or 9. We seem to be on the border. I think its 9 but would say 8 to be on the safe side.

I'm sure it can be kept in a pot at least for a while. The problem you may run into is that cherries need a certain amount of winter chill in order to give you fruit, and in zone 8/9 there are probably going to be some varieties of cherries that don't get enough chill. There are low chill cherry cultivars available, but I don't know how likely it is that the ones your supermarket was selling are going to be the right kind.

Oh we certainly get enough winter chill for a long time. Pretty much all of last year was pretty dan cold.

Your definition of chill and the cherry's definition may not match up :-) Typically in zone 9 you have to look for low chill varieties.

In my experience(when I lived in Washington state) if I left a tree in a pot ///the roots will freeze obviously killing the tree......good luck/have fun

What part of WA were you in? They're hardy to zone 5 so should probably survive in zone 6 in a container, and warmer zones than that they definitely ought to make it. If you were in eastern WA which I think is mostly zone 5-ish it makes sense that they wouldn't have made it, but if you were in warmer coastal part of WA and they were dying over the winter I think it was probably something other than cold, in zone 8/9 where dipsydoodle is it shouldn't be a problem to keep it in a pot for the winter.

Bellingham WA, on the coast....could it have been the cold wind coming off the lake?

I suspect it was something else that killed it. The rule of thumb is that plants lose about a zone of hardiness when they're in a pot instead of in the ground, but the coastal areas of WA I think are zone 8 so you've got plenty of buffer there. Cold wind can be a problem too (although it's more of a problem for plants that keep their leaves during the winter) but again you were enough zones higher than its hardiness that I'd be surprised if it was the cold that killed it unless you had a really unusual cold snap that winter where temps got significantly lower than what you'd normally see in zone 8. There are plenty of other things that can kill plants over the winter--too much water which led to root rot would be a prime suspect but there are other possibilities as well

thanx ecrane...