Juliet Cherry

Did the bush have leaf spot last year?

Romance series cherries are very different from each other. Carmine jewell is a good producer once it starts. Juliet is doing fine at the @39thparallel nursery and at my farm. I have a few cherries already. Romeo is producing lots of cherries planted at the same time at @39thparallel nursery. It’s a much heavier producer sooner in this area. The Juliet we just need to be a little more patient for. Keep in mind all romance cherries are very heavy feeders. I top dress mine with aged cow manure and put wood chips on top of that. Those nutrients gets them started off right. If you don’t feed them heavy they will sit in the ground and you will wonder why you bought them. @39thparallel has a large impressive planting of cherries.

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Thanks for all the replies! I just pruned out the dead wood. The suckers are very strong and healthy looking. I will leave them to grow as recommended. I wasn’t sure if the romance cherries had a certain rootstock that they grew from that would not produce offspring. It sounds like that is not the case.

I didn’t note any disease at all last year for either the Juliet or the Romeo. This is a picture of them from last year that I took right before I harvested them.

The only funny thing I noticed last year was that this particular bush lost its leaves about 1 month before the adjacent Romeo. We harvested around July 10. Leaves were gone by mid August. The Romeo didn’t loose its leaves until October.

While I have a listening audience… I live near Boise, ID. I can only find Carmine Jewel, Romeo, and Juliet here. How does anyone get Crimson Passion, Cupid, or Valentine??? I can find them all over Candida websites - but it appears I can’t ship them to the USA… thoughts?

Thanks again!

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Honeyberryusa has Crimson Passion, but not the other two. I bought a CP, Romeo and Juliet from them in 2017. The CP was a little twig, it didn’t last two years, but the Juliet was much bigger, and is now over 7ft tall, it has some cherries on it for the first time. Romeo bloomed also, but it’s too early to tell if it will set fruit, due to a freeze at bloom time.

I don’t think Cupid or Valentine are sold in the U.S., at least I haven’t found a US site that does. Maybe the patent holders don’t want to sell them here.

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I planted three Crimson Passions back in 2015, but all three died after a couple years. There may be a reason no one is selling them any more. The CJs, Romeos, Juliets and Wowza in the same area are growing fine, but hit with brown rot and fruit flies, so little usable fruit so far. Easy care they are not!

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Don’t forget to spray for cherry leaf spot which is likely the reason many bushes defoliate early as described above Sour Cherry Leaf Spot . It will kill the bushes if they are not sprayed. I use immunox/captan once or twice a year as needed.

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Crimson Passion is notorious for not producing fruit. You did not miss much from losing that variety.

Cupid and Valentine have not available in the US yet.

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I tried growing Crimson Passion and while I had good luck with Carmine Jewel and Juliet, my Crimson Passion never produced a single cherry. (and barely grew either)

Basically, I would recommend you try it only if you have some extra space and money for an experiment.

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Where do you live near Boise?I have 2 juliets and they are both doing well, no dieback so far. Mine did not go dormant until much later. Is it possible it didn’t get enough water? That would explain the early dormancy.

I have had my Carmine Jewel 7 years and yet to see a sucker, or a dead branch for that matter. Juliet is younger at 4 years old, and well same thing. I have seen tips die back, but never a whole branch. Not saying you’re wrong, but conditions of environment may be in play. We don’t have extremes here, nothing really suckers much. A couple plum rootstocks is the only suckers I have seen. My guess is damage causes suckering and my trees have not been damaged. Now I did mow Wowza down it’s first year and yes it did sucker. I forgot about that! Still a small little thing third leaf. I don’t see fruit for at least another 2 years. It too small.

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@mschwendi

Your cherry defoliated due to cherry leaf spot. Then the main bush died and resprouted. To avoid this in the future spraying immunox or a similar fungicide will prevent the Bush from losing it’s leaves early that leads to death of the main bush. I’m familiar with this cycle having seen it with my own bushes and many others bushes as well. These bushes do not lose their leaves until it’s very cold out.

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I live just west of Boise - in Meridian. I just checked the irrigation line to the plant and it is functioning thankfully. I like the leaf spot idea that people are talking about. The leaves did yellow and fall at least 6 weeks before the healthy Romeo. It’s crazy though - the Juliet that died looked great all summer - and gave us a massive crop before it died!

Products like weed and feed for lawns can kill bushes and trees also. A tree can typically survive one or two applications per year but if done repeatedly for several years you can kill trees too. Bushes are easier to kill. If applied in early spring it can cause deformed leaves that curl and fall off early. If you have used this product it may have something to do with what you are seeing. It could be cherry leaf spot too, but you should already be seeing some shot holes in the leaves from your picture. It can be other things like cleaning your roof or structure. It can happen for numerous reasons even weather. I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong or that you did anything wrong but sometimes accidents happen too.
My CP got cherry leaf spot last year pretty bad and I sprayed it. This year it was half dead. It also dropped it’s leaves early. they turn yellow and brown and fall off. They say to clear away the leaves from the ground. You will notice this disease in mid summer with brown spots that turn to holes in your leaves.

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juliet tree form

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I thought people might want to see how my Juliet was doing… I posted about 3 weeks ago about how it died off over the winter and sent up suckers this spring. Per recommendations from the forum, I pruned the dead wood out and let this little guy revive himself…

See what 3 weeks has done! It is at least 18 inches tall! At this rate - this will be huge by the fall! In the last picture - you’ll see my Romeo cherry which was planted at the same time as the Juliet in Spring 2018. I think this Juliet will survive and THRIVE!

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I saw Valentine a couple days ago at Costco in Anchorage and made a thread about it. It probably wasn’t thread worthy- but it was the first time I have ever seen that variety sold in the US. I bought one. I went back a couple days later and everything was sold out.

I met a grower in Wasilla who had all of them, including Cupid. He probably jumped through some hoops to obtain it though.

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We use this method for mice in the basement of our office. Very efficient and effective. Hopefully the hawks hanging around in the field outside continue to keep the population in check so we don’t have them go to waste. Also, the birds of prey are why we don’t use poison.

In keeping with the thread, a generous member here went through the trouble of excavating a Juliet root for me once the ground thawed, and I have had it potted in the grow room for a bit now. It finally started to send out some shoots, I’ll post pictures later. I’m very excited.

Bottom left is the section where the action is happening! I am hopeful the one on the top sends out a shoot too, I’ve been trying to balance enough watering and not getting rot.

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Now that this thread is several years old and more folks have had a chance to try Juliet, I would love to hear more experiences with the flavor of Juliet.

Please offer your opinion. Is it pleasurable to eat out of hand? Or is it a little too sour? @mamuang is Juliet still more sour compared to Danube?

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I ate a bunch last year but they are definitely sour. I like sour stuff though. I’m not disappointed at all in them, highly productive for their size. I will plant another row with suckers in a few years.

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too sour for me, but I like sweet more than sour, they arent horrible to eat when ripe, but they are good in pies etc. They do sucker A LOT so dont plant one where you dont want to deal with that, they are productive and the pits are large enough to get out with my old fashioned crank pitter which makes removing the seeds a lot faster. Carmine jewel doesnt work well at all through my pitter.

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