I bought a Royal Lee and Minnie Royal cherry on Z-Dwarf a year and a half ago from GrowOrganic. I put them in pots as sweet cherries around here are supposed to have issues with spring freezes and I figured I could move them in the garage if needed. This year was their first year to bloom. The Minnie Royal bloomed about two weeks before the Royal Lee and there was a bit of overlap of their blooms, but not much. I had 2 cherries from my Royal Lee set and have been following them ever since.
Charlie, when I do get cherries, I’ve picked the first and second week of May here in S. California. And, I would most definitely bag or net the tree as Vin suggests, so you don’t have to worry.
I ate mine a little early last year so the birds wouldn’t get them. They still were sweet, but I think they would be best if left on three weeks after they turn dark.
I will pick them in the next couple of weeks. The birds haven’t noticed them yet, but it is better to be safe than sorry so I will see about purchasing a bird net to put around the tree.
Patty, I’m curious about how your cherries look before they drop. I had a large number of cherries for the first time on my black Tartarian but they have started to drop. They are large enough that I’m sure they were pollinated, but they just started to wrinkle and whither on the tree as if they were drying out, then they fall. Is that how yours look? Do you have any idea why they drop? Thanks.
Mine looked normal at first, then then sort of stopped thriving. They stopped growing, stayed small and then began to get paler and more yellow, then they dropped off.
I see exactly the same thing with a portion (yes, only a portion, not all, thankfully) of fruit on my young plum trees. I have a theory that a tree effective does a self-thinning, selecting which fruit to develop further and which to terminate due to lack of resources.
