I saw edible landscaping has Ian and Gabe white Nanking cherries in stock and I was thinking about getting one of each to add to the orchard. I’m in Maryland just south of Annapolis zone 7b.
First, there seems to be a wide range of opinions on disease and pest susceptibility (and ease of growing). Lee Reich writes they are easy, no spray plants with little if any disease and pest issues. meanwhile the Morton Arboretum states “It is often short lived and prone to insect and disease problems, including black knot, verticillium wilt, and borers.”. I suspect their care is largely climate dependent and they might not fare well in my hot humid climate. I’m only interested in them as a no spray, minimum care fruiting plant.
As for the fruit, as I understand it, they are small with a bad seed to flesh ratio, but nice and sweet eaten out of hand for kids and could potentially be processed without removing the pits into juice or jelly. that’s fine with me. Prunus is tolerant of juglone and I was hoping this could be my best option for a no spray, sweet enough to eat out of hand fruit in the Prunus Genus.
In humid and hot Kansas, we grow them. All the negative things said are somewhat true. All the positive things said are also somewhat true. My nanking never completely die even grown spray free, but i do lose some from time to time. In some areas they just mow them off every 5 or 10 years and they come back up. I have never mowed them off and let them regrow, but i do let them self seed. Im always getting new bushes a foot from the old bush from the seeds. They are sour and sweet and kids will love them like we do. I highly recommend them for what you want them to do. I also recommend you plant some carmine jewell cherries which are more disease resistant and heavier producers with a better flesh to pit ratio. Your kids will love both!
My own are not big enough yet to be giving me fruit. Something liked the leaves on almost everything in my yard this year. The wild areas had a moderate junebug population; i was overrun by grasshoppers; and, of course, the deer sample lots of things, especially at the heights and ages most of my stuff is.
Most of mine have come from Edible Landscaping, although I’ve some grafts I’m hoping will take. Wandering around their grounds this past spring I was able to taste most of the readily available named cultivars. I enjoyed them all. There is a sweet spot for ripeness that comes a bit later than they first appear ripe, and I found it a bit harder to estimate with the white ones, although I did find the flavor to be slightly better on them when I got it right. It’s not a huge swing, though, compared to some other fruits, at least on my palate.
Prunus is a mixed bag with juglone, and juglone is simply the best known of the alleopathic influences of the trees that produce it. I hope I am wrong, but I do not expect Nanking to do well in too close proximity to it. The squirrels are determined to ensure I find out. I really hope we learn a lot about mitigation without destruction on this issue in the next few years as I have a neighbor a bit too interested in black walnuts for my senior years on this property to be able to keep up with.
I’m in zone 7b, central Georgia, probably even hotter and more humid than you. Unfortunately, I agree with the Morton Arboretum statement. Verticillium wilt has been a terrible problem. The plants usually don’t last more than 3 years without most of the plant dying, or often the entire thing. Mine have all been seedlings. Perhaps there are some resistant cultivars out there.
I tried growing the red and white- they didn’t survive the winter for me (Alaska). I got a red and white for my mom in Oregon and they are huge now. In the spring they look incredible when covered with blooms. She has yet to get a single fruit and is ready to rip them out and wants to plant a “real cherry” that makes cherries. My coworker here in Alaska has a couple Nanking cherries and the fruits are tiny and the yields are low compared to the real estate the bushes occupy. There’s a grower up in Palmer that has a couple Nanking cherry plants and those bushes are huge and the fruit set is minor. I’d say it’s more of a novelty plant than a serious fruit production plant.
I don’t think there are any named cultivars/ named varieties so the genetics of an individual plant could be all over the place, and what doesn’t work in one place might work for you.
I have Ian, Gabe, and Jules in 6b/7a central PA. My Gabe was just planted this spring and hasnt done anything yet. My Ian and my Jules got browsed on pretty heavily by deer their first winter that set them really back. They both flowered this spring bit didnt set any fruit. I dont think it was weather related because i had a bumper crop of Black Gold cherries this year along with the rest of the stonefruit I grow. I will gladly report back next season with results.
I removed both my Nankings this year. One had brown rot pretty badly, and the other was starting to get it. They’re also a Japanese beetle magnet. They both fruited a bit, but the cherries are small, and like you already stated, the fruit-to-pit ratio isn’t great. Over time I’ve been moving more towards larger fruits that don’t require a lot of processing time, like apples, pears and plums. However if you like eating sour cherries raw they’re kind of fun, especially for the kids.
I bought a bundle of row-run Nanking seedlings 25 yrs ago, for a grafting experiment (they make an extreme dwarfing rootstock for peaches & plums). Left a few in the nursery row. Rarely get fruit - or, perhaps I just don’t look at the appropriate time, but after my first experience with the tiny little fruits that had just a thin rim of pulp around the pit… I knew they were not worth my time to pick.
I almost get the impression that they’re a fruit for folks in extreme cold zones who can’t grow a ‘real’ cherry (not that I care a whit about a cherry).
Zone 7b… I think you can do better than Nanking.
Just my $.02
I had several bushes . I am in zone 5 in upstate NY. All of the bushes became infested with Blackknot. As for taste, they werent very sweet and not that great to eat. Size was very variable from year to year. I have one bush left that I havent ripped out , and that was only because it was giving some privacy along the fence line. Im taking it out in the spring and planting something else. Highbush Blueberries make great bushes for the yard that you can graze on as you pass by. You will have to put fine netting over them as they start to ripen, as the birds have the same idea.Get early , mid, and late blooming ones and you will have blueberries most of the summer. I was surprised my Elliot bush was still bearing in September and this was the first year it beared. My advice would be to buy the largest bushed you can find because they take a few years to do much. You will pay more for sure but its worth it.
I can’t do blueberries because they are highly susceptible to juglone poisoning. the slice of my property that is Juglone free is dedicated to persimmons, jujubes, goumi, and figs.
I planted Nankings two years ago, no flowers (maybe 3) yet but they where quick to get established and quickly despite now growing in the shade.
I also planted a couple of Hansen Bush Cherries, Prunus besseyi Western Sand Cherry. Has not established or grown as fast as the Nankings. But its considers a low grower.
Like @clarkinks, we live in hot and humid NE Kansas, and have grown Nanking cherries for decades. Personally, I love them because they are always the first thing to bloom in the spring, and they have never failed to set a whole bunch of fruit, regardless of late freezes at any time in the spring. Ours only last five or six years, but they constantly reseed themselves. We don’t bother much to pick them, but some of the bushes make really big fruit (and I always think about saving seeds from those and actually planting them, but we have so much other fruiting things, that I usually forget).
Ours have suffered from no diseases (unlike our other cherries which get brown rot very readily). We think it’s borers that get them.