I came back the Wight’s nursery looking for a Puget Gold Apricots on Lowell root stock today and saw not much Juliet cherries left over like all the others.
Here is a photo of my Juliet from Gurney’s, it arrived late this afternoon.The price was reasonable, $22.50 plus $8.99 shipping to CA (first time customer).Root system is massive, tree is 48 inches from bottom of root to top. Tree condition good, no broken limbs or roots, roots were moist. It will be planted tomorrow.
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Mine came today but I was not in so it is spending the weekend at the post office. My Razzmatazz grape came last week, it was a nice large plant that was pruned heavily leaving 6" of top and 6" of roots. Glad to see your cherry was left intact.
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Nice looking plant. I bought my Romeo and Juliet elsewhere this fall. If I had known this is what Gurney’s plants looked like I might have bought from Gurney’s.
Looks great, Rich! That’s a lot of roots, and nice big plant. I have one of those, a Romeo, and a Crimson Passion on order from Honeyberryusa, due first of April. Hope they look as good as yours.
I thought Gurney’s prices for the RS bushes were high, did you get some kind of discount?
Please show us a pic of it in the ground after you plant it, if you don’t mind.
I bought mine from Henry Fields so hoping I’ll get the same stock.
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They had a 50% discount last month for them, I went for it.
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Yeah me too! I made room by giving chills my extra Carmine Jewel. He lives close to me. Yeah it’s the same company, so same stock, I’m almost positive. Well same supplier of whomever is growing them.
Another good thing to mention is a non professional (retired accountant or something like that) developed Niwot black raspberry and Gurney’s helped distribute it, so they work with all kinds to find these plants. You never know they might sell my raspberry creation one day? All I have to do is come up with about 15 grand to jump the hoops to get it there. I probably will just give it away, if I ever develop something worthwhile, a big if!
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It will be interesting to see how well the plant does and the fruiting in your area. Brady
Those aren’t roots! Somebody grafted carrots on your cherry tree! But seriously, those roots look really nice.
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They might be parsnips! I’ll let you know how it does out here in the mild climate of Silicon Valley. You never know until you try something new out. Sweet cherries are a challenge, they need the perfect environment: not too hot or cold, too wet or dry, bugs, birds, raccoons go after them etc. On the other hand nothing went after my lone Candy Heart pluerry all last season! Its all about experimentation and strategy. Plant more of what works, change out what does not work and so on.
I hate to tell you Bob, but if your Romance cherries from Honeyberryusa look anything like mine did when they came in last year, they won’t even be CLOSE to Richard’s Juliet in the photo above! I ordered one of each and they were all 12 inch tall whips! I even paid the extra $3-$5 for the “larger” size. The containers were seriously about 2 inches x 2 inches. Imagine buying one of those 6-pack of tomato plants at Walmart and cutting the connected 6 plastic holders into separate ones. TINY.
That being said, I must say that they all grew like wildfire and by fall they were just about the size of Richard’s. It would have been nice to start there instead of end there- especially since he only paid a few more dollars- but overall I’m not mad at honeyberry- I ended up with some nice little bushes. I also ordered several honeyberries. They were even smaller if you can imagine! Same with Saskatoons I got from them.My saskatoons didn’t do too well, and honeyberries grew much slower than cherries but did survive and look ready to get started growing again this spring- even though they are less than 12 inches tall even after growing all last year. So you definitely want to lower your size expectations! ha. But again, most of my plants did well, especially cherries…
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Yeah even though a mom and pop operation honeyberries can give out small plants. You know a few years ago their was a rush to obtain them, and they were the only supplier besides the related Gurney’s and Henry Fields. That has ended, so maybe bigger plants will be shipped now? I just gave away a Carmine Jewel. I had two, paid 7 bucks for one of them from Henry Fields. It’s actually the one I kept as it is still bigger.
I bought a Juliet to have a little diversity. Two plant should yield enough cherries for me. Although giving up a mature plant is going to limit my yields for a few years till Juliet catches up. When both are fully mature yield should be 30 to 40 pounds. I don’t see why i would need more than that. Although maybe I do, I love these cherries, outstanding quality for tart cherries.
The jam I made last year was the best ever. It didn’t last but a few weeks, and to tell the truth I make jam more for other family members, not a huge fan, I kept all of it for myself. So there you go. The skins just melted in your mouth (it was actually preserves). So darn good!
Carmine Jewel-red currant preserves, and some green Ketchup!
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I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’ll make note of it again because it seems timely with everyone ordering stuff up this time of year.
I’ve ALWAYS gotten pretty small stuff when I ordered from Honeyberry, and I honestly think it outperforms the larger bareroot stuff. (At least in our location)
Case in point: Everything I’ve ever ordered in for my own planting here has been the little 2" pots, and they come in less than pencil thick and usually between 9-12".
I’ve ordered for friends and family and received in larger stock… EVERY SINGLE TIME. (And I’ve learned it doesn’t matter - at all! I can put in a very small twig and it’ll just take off. See pix below)
Heck, one time I’d placed about a $500 group order (of which none of the cherry bushes would be planted here, only a few of the Honeyberry plants were going in the ground here) and at some point Bernis emailed asking if I would mind if she upgraded my order from potted plantings to bareroot - No extra charge. Of course I was good with that.
They arrived and were all really nice healthy looking large bareroot stock. I planted one at each of my Daughters places, and the rest went out to others in the group buy.
None of them took off like my little potted plants have. And I know soil is different from one spot to another, you don’t have to go very far either. So I can imagine how things are different from state-to-state, or region-to-region.
Here are three pictures of Crimson Passion taken on the day they arrived on 4/16/14, and then one & two year later pictures.
This one is just to show the size, which is a little over a foot to the soil line of the little pot they’re in. Date was 4/16/14.
Here it is at the far right a year and two months later.
This is a closer shot of it in June of '16.
So it goes in the ground 4/14 as a twig and a couple years later it’s pretty decent size. It didn’t flower last year, so maybe this year???
But the much larger bare root bushes friends and family have planted are lagging WAY behind.
Here are some pictures from this morning:
This is a shot from this morning of the trunk size of the CJ using a spray paint can for perspective. (If you look behind this one you’ll see the CJ directly behind has an even larger circumference. These CJ’s were all twigs in '11 & '12.
This is an 8’ 2x4 just to show height with something for perspective. Of course absent foliage they don’t appear nearly as massive as when they’re all leafed out. I am going to give these CJ’s a good hair cut pretty soon so they will be more manageable this year.
And lastly, here’s the Juliet I planted last year. There are two plants here, and are roughly 10-11" to the soil line.
So they arrived 4/9/16
And this is from this morning - like 10 months later.
So anyway, I just wanted to weigh in on my experience. I do know that things are different based on soil and location, etc. But these tiny plantings don’t always mean you’re in for a long wait.
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I’m not worried about waiting, it’s just being physically small is going to be more sensitive. I have lost some from honeyberries as they were just too small to handle any stress, as you say conditions vary. You have to be more on top of small plants to meet their needs, and I cannot always do that, so it matters a lot to me, what size. i will only order if I can’t get it elsewhere. I bought four honeyberries last year, 1 died. I didn’t bother to ask for a replacement, I went elsewhere to replace it. As another small plant, now mid-summer, will just die too. Proven winners was selling them, and the plant was much larger and made it, even in mid-summer.
Jerry thanks for the photos, very nice! I still will order from honeyberries, I may buy a couple honeyberries this year. 2 trees in the Romance series is enough for me.
I do agree the Romance series cherries if small are tough. I don’t see even a small one dyeing, but with honeyberries, it matters.
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That’s encouraging to hear, @IowaJer. I just looked at the HB website, and all the plants I ordered are in the 12-20" range. Yes, it would be nice if they were bigger, but they are bushes after all, not trees. So, as long as they put on decent growth, and if I can keep the deer away, I’m not too worried about them.
Looks like you’ve certainly gone to great lengths to “deer-proof” them. How tall are those T posts? I have about a dozen 6ft posts like that I was going to use for my trees, but maybe I ought to use them to fence in my bushes like you did. How far are the bushes from each other, about 8ft?
That is interesting as it’s usually the other way around. It was in my case, the bare root Carmine Jewel way outperformed the potted one. After 4 years, the bare root is still bigger, but both are doing well now. It is bigger because I got it bigger, they grew pretty much at the same rate. Hopefully your friends and family planted them correctly. As it could explain the problem.
I’d really love to be able to grow ‘Juliet’, but my climate just isn’t conducive to any sour cherries. They sound so great, especially ‘Juliet’.
Patty S.
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Thanks so much for those awesome photos Jerry. My plant performance the first year is almost exactly the same as yours, so I hope the next couple years also follow suit. I hope you read all of my post and not just the quote about how small my plants were when I got them, because I said just about the same thing you did- that I didn’t have a problem with the small size because they grew really fast and were very healthy. I’m blown away by the photo of today, which if I understood is just the 3rd leaf coming up. That trunk is impressive. Surely that thing will bloom this year.
I agree 100% with this assessment. I’ve had zero problems with the U of S cherry bushes no matter how small, but I have gotten some rather diminutive Honeyberry plants from Michigan Bulb that have struggled and I’ve wondered from time to time if they would make it at all. Little to no growth too. I’ve also gotten Honeyberry plants from HBUSA that produced fruit the same year I planted them!
I have always had the very best results with bare root trees, there is no question about that. But in this case, with these bushes it’s kind of a real oddity to me. Thing is, I planted both my daughters so I’m hopeful that isn’t the problem.
One of the guys in the group buy was a hort major at ISU and a Master Gardner, so I don’t have any worries about how he dealt with them. And he planted some at his mothers place as well as his grandparents. None of these bare root plantings have done much, so I don’t know. That’s why I’m up front in saying that it could all have to do with location, and so what seems more likely to me is just maybe the soil here on my place. I just have no other explanation, because I agree bare root generally affords quite a jump start on most things.
The T-posts are 6’ with about 5’ above ground. I’ve removed the fence around my older cherry bushes just this past fall, but the cages still around my Juliet bushes have the 5’ fencing.
I just took my tape out and the Juliet in the picture is 45" tall, the other one is 57" tall, and the Crimson Passion planted in '14 is 98" tall.
These bushes are all planted on 12’ centers, and don’t think people don’t look at you through a squinted eye when they come down and see these little twigs spaced on 12’ centers…
But I’m still glad I did, as it allows me room to maneuver around them, and I think allows for better air flow in our humid climes. But it’s getting hard to pass between the bigger CJ’s now, and you mostly have to go by sideways.
Here’s a picture from last May. I’m planning on getting the pruners out PDQ.
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