How to grow Cherries

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They grow best in areas with mild summers and cold winters, so check the variety is suitable for your area before buying. And if you’re not after the fruit, you can purchase ornamental varieties, which put on a gorgeous floral show in spring.

How to grow cherries in a garden

Choose a sunny spot with well drained soil. Enrich the soil with Yates Dynamic Lifter Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser. If the soil is clay based, add gypsum and fork in well.
Dig the planting hole twice as wide and to the same depth as the root-ball. Remove the shrub from the container, gently tease the roots and cut away any circled or tangled roots.
Position in hole and backfill, gently firming down. Form a raised ring around the plant, creating a well so that water will go where it’s needed most. Water in well.
Mulch around the base with organic mulch like bark chips, sugarcane or pea straw, keeping it away from the trunk.
Water deeply, at least once every 2-3 days to ensure the soil is moist - you may need to water more often in warmer conditions.
Feed your tree once every autumn and spring. When flowering and fruiting, feed weekly with Yates Thrive Citrus Liquid Plant Food to help promote fruit production.

How to grow cherries in a pot

Cherries grow into large trees, so they’re better suited to growing in medium large gardens. However, there are smaller varieties that are available, which are perfect growing in large pots in small gardens or even balconies! Look for Trixzie Cherree White Cherry or Black Cherry.

Choose a pot at least 600mm wide. Position in full sun and fill with quality potting mix, such as Yates Potting Mix with Dynamic Lifter.
Remove the shrub from the container, gently tease the roots and cut away any circled or tangled roots.
Position in hole and backfill with potting mix, gently firming down. Water in well.
Water deeply, at least once every 2-3 days to ensure the soil is moist - you may need to water more often in warmer conditions.
Mulch around the base with organic mulch like bark chips, sugarcane or pea straw, keeping it away from the trunk.
Feed your tree once every autumn and spring. When flowering and fruiting, feed weekly with Yates Thrive Citrus Liquid Plant Food to help promote fruit production.

Growing tips

Most varieties require a compatible pollinating partner to help with pollination and fruit production. However, there are self-fertile trees, such as Lapin, Stella or Trixzie Cherree White Cherry, which can grow on their own and produce fruit.

Prune trees to encourage an open, vase shape. After this framework has been developed, little pruning is needed, except to remove branches growing inward and/or dead branches. Cherries bear fruit on spurs growing on two-year-old or older wood.

Pruning, when necessary, should be done in autumn as trees are subject to bacterial canker or ‘gumming’. Cuts heal quicker during this time than when trees are fully dormant.
Early varieties are ‘Burgsdorf’ and ‘Early Lyons’. Both have dark fruit and will cross-pollinate. ‘Ron’s Seedling’ is a dark-red, mid-season variety. ‘Napoleon’ is a mid-season, white flesh variety. ‘St margaret’ is the leading late variety with red flesh. Use ‘Florence’ or ‘Black Boy’, another very dark-skinned, late variety, as pollinators. ‘Stella’ is self-fertilie and will pollinate most varieties.
Help plants make the most of any available water by mulching heavily over the root area with a ten-centimetre-thick layer of organic mulch and by applying Yates Waterwise Soil Wetter Concentrate. Soil wetters encourage water to move into the root zone.