Welcome to the forum! Same thing happened to me many times in Kansas. Every cherry tree i planted did the same thing sometimes fast or sometimes slowly. Plowed a terrace and planted the sweet cherry on top of the mound using mahaleb rootstock. Actually it might have originally been a black tartarian on mahaleb. If you want throw some old manure in once in awhile as you make your mound. After i made that mound and planted the mahaleb i never had any problems. I grafted sweet cherry and sour cherries to the same mahaleb rootstock once it was established. This is Kansas so i never saw a totally ripe sweet cherry but in a way i kind of felt like it was a win anyway. The sour cherries sure are tasty! One strategy you might consider i have had really good luck with is buy you some carmine jewell cherries and plant them without all the trouble. Graft on some sweet cherries later on! The carmine jewell is a heavy feeder so work in plenty of fertilizer Carmine Jewell Cherry Yields increasing with age . Here is how i grafted sweet cherry Sweet cherry grafts . Good luck either way you decide to go! Here are some photos of the mound tree but dont laugh to hard. All my sweet cherries always get stolen! It is a pretty poor looking tree but the point is it can be done and much better than i did it.
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