I planted Carmine Jewel and Crimson Passion next to each other in 2014. Carmine Jewel opened few flowers on 3rd leaf, gave me good crop on 4th leaf and full of future blooms now. Crimson Passion didn’t open a single flower yet. The bush itself growing well, and about 20% bigger (taller and wider) than Carmine Jewel. Crimson Passion is actually getting more sun, as it is planted to the south from Carmine Jewel. But it is 5th leaf and I do not see any potential flower on it, though leaves already opening. Any idea what could be wrong with it? I hate to loose 5 years, but if it is not going to flower, I don’t want to keep it just in case either…
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That seems to be the nature of Crimson Passion. A lot of people have reported similar lack of fruit setting in the Romance Series thread: My "Romance series" cherries
I’m not too far from you in the Boston area and my Crimson Passion, same age as yours, hasn’t produced fruit yet either. But my Carmine Jewel and two Juliettes have.
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Like @SMC_zone6 mentioned Crimson Passion is not known for being productive.
I am amazed that your CJ is blooming now. My 2nd leaf Juliet does not seem to have any flower. My sweet cherry, Black Gold is not ready to bloom yet.
I agree with everything said here so far but I would encourage you to exercise patience. You can force any bush into blooming with enough fertilizer and age. My general approach to stubborn fruits is when I’m tired of waiting I hit them with heavy amounts of aged cow manure around the bush and several inches of wood chips on top of the manure. Crimson passion will never produce regularly but it was never the less selected for a reason which was flavor. It’s documented well Canadian Dwarf Sour Cherries – Prunus x kerrasis — Carrington REC. Northstar is inconsistent for me so it’s not a surprise.
Thanks for the link, I wish I read it before I ordered 5 years ago. Patience is a good thing if you know that some day it will pay you back and will be doing it on regular basis. But my yard is just 6000 sq foot including buildings and driveway. I literally have space for only two PRODUCING bushes of cherry… To have one that will produce occasionally 1 year of 5 - I can’t afford it. Looks like this fall I will dig it up and move to my neighbor yard I maintain, I just removed wild apple from there that grew too big. While she lives there, it still will be my tree, she wouldn’t eat sour cherry anyway 
. If she sells the house, oh, well, I guess it will be somebody else’s tree.
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No, it is not blooming yet, flower buds are visible like very tight cluster yet. And they are everywhere!
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Maybe you could graft carmine jewell on the bush and then you would be back in production in a year or 2. Then still keep enough cp branches to get a good taste when it was a good year.
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I may try it, but it is probably to late, my CJ already about to bloom, to late for scion wood?
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Galina,
It is late to collect scion now,I think. The scionwood I got from you last mo th already pushh buds when I grafted it last week. I just pray it will take. I figure scion collection for us needs to ge done in Jan when it really dormant.
If I were you, I would bother grafting CJ to your CP. your trees are about two feet apart. How much closer could they be? CP is just non productive anywhere.
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The grafting meaning here is to replace like half or more of CP with something else, not improve pollination. But I never grafted cherry, and don’t have enough of scions, just one from you.
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Grafting cherry is almost as easy as grafting apple. I said that because my success rate on cherry grating is still a bit behind apples 
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I would tbud it pretty soon. You do that with non dormant wood.
I pruned mine back this year at the sixth leaf. I feed it bone meal and fish oil. It apears to have fruiting spurs now just below where I pruned. I will keep on pruning and feeding this bush to see what happens. This spring will tell.
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I removed mine.
That looks promising. I’m sticking with mine too even though it seems uninterested in producing fruit. It’s become a battle of wills between me and CP.
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I think once they start fruiting they might just keep on fruiting but who knows. I’m going to keep on heading every branch back and see if I can stack up some spurs. These spurs might just grow leaves too.
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I’ve held onto mine that I planted in 2015. Still no flowers this year. Based on everyone’s experience with CP’s stubbornness to set fruit, it seems kind of ridiculous that it was even released.
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thats the only one of the romance series cherries i didnt plant just for that reason. maybe get some carminej, juliet and romeo scions to convert some of it to maybe fruit sooner.
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I’m going to stick with it until it does fruit. The others are all fruiting for me, so may as well just enjoy those and wait this one out. I see it as a battle of wills at this point.
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good luck Steve! you’ll enjoy it that much more when you do get them.
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