My "Romance series" cherries

I hate spraying :confused: I bought a bunch of stuff (pricey) and get confused about timing of application not to mention safety precautions etc. so thankfully this plant has done ok this year without any. But all of my others struggled so I’ll see how it goes. Thanks so much. I wasn’t sure if the leaves had identifying characteristics. Maybe I’ll get blossoms next spring. I planted it Spring of 2017.

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you may. these cherries are generally disease resistant. i just spray them as a precaution but some don’t and haven’t had issues.

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I just ordered 60 Juliet bushes from Honeyberry. I noticed @IowaJer spaced them on 12’ centers. Based on Jerry’s photo. I’m thinking of spacing them on 15’ centers. Any thoughts on how long they will take to fill in?

When they start to sucker. how far away do the suckers come up?

Jerry, did you notice that Honeyberry has your photo on their Website?

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I planted a 80’ row of Carmine jewels and juliets in spring 19. I put mine 6’ within row spacing. They are not even close to filling the gap yet. Juliets have definitely sent up more suckers than Carmine jewel. I would say a foot from the base of the plant is the farthest they have sent up a sucker. Mine are in really good soil, mulched well, and on drip irrigation. I planted another 80’ row this spring too with some romeos too, went down to 5’ spacing on them to hopefully get them filled in faster.

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Hi Mark,

Haven’t been on much lately, but noticed I had an email on this this morning so thought I’d weigh in.

I’d guess 6-7 years to fill in but that’s a guess. I had trimmed mine a bit just so I could get through there in between.

The suckers will be right under the bush to maybe 15-20’ away. Mine began suckering in about the 4th year if I recall.

Yes I did know that HBUSA uses a picture of my bushes, and I’m okay with that.

I’ve corresponded with Bernis several times and I believe she might check the forum here from time to time. Only reason I say that is that one time I was in an email deal with her and she responded with a paragraph that was word-for-word what Dr. Bors had written to me in an email.

I responded that it looked familiar :slightly_smiling_face:

She replied that she found it on the forum and actually put it on their website.

So I think it probably came from the one time that I had posted most of what Dr Bors had told me in that email that I thought would be helpful to the thread.

Anyway, I’m golden with all of it as long as fruit growers might get some benefit somewhere along the way. And they’re good folks too.

This may bore you, but I’ll just post some pictures of my bushes from the early years to current.

I know every location is different, but for what I wanted these things got way bigger than advertised. People thought I was off a little bit when I went 12’ on center as all mine came in as little twigs. If I had it to do over I would also go 15’ on center as you are planning on doing. I think more air flow in this high humidity just makes sense for me.

And of course, I didn’t want a hedge whereas a lot of folks are looking for that.

I mow in between mine or those suckers would have filled in a long time ago I think.

My first three CJ’s were planted in 2011, then in 2012 I added two more.

After that in 2014 I added two Crimson Passion which I eventually removed, and then I added a couple Juliet’s in 2016.


This is just showing all five CJ’s in 2012. So three in front from '11 and the two on the far right were in ground pbly 3 months at the time of the picture.

Then most of the following should just be each year later and have a date stamp.

So the thing is, I had cut up to four feet off these in March the past couple years and they just keep wanting to grow to the sky.

Anyway, kinda got carried away but you get the idea.

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Thanks so much Jerry. Those are some great pics.

I think I will plant them at 15’ and if I need to dig some suckers to fill in, so be it.

Your cherries really look great. We have really good soil here too. Hope mine do as well as yours.

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yeah yours got a lot bigger than mine by the 5th year. mine are only half as big. i planted them in mounds of bag soil and fed with chic manure for 4 yrs. from now on I’m just going to keep mulch around them and let them do their thing… how soon did you get fruit? i got a few the 4th year and a couple dozen this year. romeo ,is in its 3rd year and hasn’t produced any yet even though it had flowers. also put in a lutowka rose cherry last summer. this summer it put on 2ft. of growth.

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I had some CJ’s set fruit in '14 but not enough to amount to much, then in 2015 I took 16 gallons, and after that it was off to the races.

On five CJ bushes we got 33g in 2016, 32g in 2017, 61g in 2018, 42g in 2019 and 46 gallons in 2020. And honestly we leave a lot on the bushes. (and many on the ground if storms come in)

Someone who began picking sooner and had more pickers could have harvested more for sure. But at some point the JB’s arrive and other pest pressure when it’s just not practical to spray and wait, so it’s hard to really quantify just how well these CJ’s have done - but for sure good enough for me. I don’t want more by the time it’s over.

So I don’t know how to look at it really, I mean in '11 I planted twigs and if I count that as growing year one, and had some small amounts in 2014 then for me it was year 4 before even small amounts appeared with CJ’s.

Juliet’s were in ground in 2016 and my records show I had 40-50 cherries to taste test in 2018, and I took 3.5 gal in 2019, and in 2020 we got 14 gallons. (that’s from two bushes of course)

So for me the Juliet’s made tasting and measurable fruit a year sooner than my CJ’s.

The Juliet’s are 5 years in ground now and are in the 9-10’ range. I will give them a haircut in the spring when I once again get after the CJ’s :slightly_smiling_face:

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my cj, and juliets are both 5yrs and the juliet produced sooner with more cherries than the 1 cj did and both bushes are the same size. though i planted the romeo 2 yrs later its only a little smaller than the others because it was already a 30in. plant when i got it. i can’t wait until they are in full production. so far the birds have ignored them and my honey berries. hopefully it stays that way . the field next door is full of chokecherries and high bush cranberry. they are late ripening berries so maybe why the birds haven’t been looking for some thing red in mid summer.

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It’s funny, but the birds don’t exactly love my CJ’s. Not saying they don’t get in them every so often, but it’s almost unnoticeable. I truly believe they are just more attracted to the bright red of the Early Richmond cherries, and the deep purple on the CJ’s just doesn’t do it for them. (That or they’re like me and just don’t care for the out of hand taste that much :wink:)

But I think I’ve mentioned somewhere before on the forum that I have a birdbath that sits between the ER tree and the CJ bushes and throughout the harvest season there are always several pits in the bottom of the birdbath and they are almost 100% of the time ER pits.

I made the mistake of not netting very securely one of my Honeyberry bushes and they just cleaned it out. I have to net Blueberries and Honeyberries or I wouldn’t have any.

Sounds like you’re in a good place if the surrounding ground works to steer them away from your stuff. I remember Clark saying he had Mulberry trees just for that same reason.

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I’ve got a cluster of flower buds! I think this may be a Romeo but not certain. I’m surprised that the Nankings and other cherries nearby bloomed a few weeks ago but these are just buds coming close to open. I guess our kwanzan(?) ornamental is just blooming, so kind of timed with those, or a tad after.

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I’ve got a pruning question on my new Juliet cherry. They sent a good size bush, but I see a lot of blind wood. My understanding is that don’t bud out much from old wood when you make a heading cut. I think I want to cut the long branches out (probably next spring) and let the cluster of lower branches take over. My proposed cuts are marked in red. Does that make sense, or am I overthinking things, as usual?

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Jesus, that thing is massive. Where’d you buy it, its bigger than my 3 year old bush.

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I got it from Gurney’s as I had a gift certificate. The price didn’t seem so outlandish when it showed up, but it seems a lot larger than other pics I’ve seen of what they send. I guess I just got lucky! The rhubarb plant I got from them was wimpy. They sent a tissue culture plant that clearly needed another month in the greenhouse.

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it’s hard to kill these cherries, you could cut it to the ground and it would come back…

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I got three Juliets from Gurney’s and they were similarly large, easily the biggest I have received of the several I have ordered from various places.

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Hi folks. I finally got my last 3 cherries delivered yesterday, all 3 are Carmine Jewel. They look more like small trees that bushes, but supposely on their own roots. Just planted them as soon as got them delivered. I am wondering if this time kind of too late to plant them?

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These bush cherries can grow up to 10-12 ft tall and wide. Wonder if you planted them too close to your driveway.

I didn’t have any other option, my frontyard portion on that side of the driveway is only close to 8 feet. I had to make sure the neighbor is not upset that the trees are too close to his precious lawn. I guess I will have to get good pruning tools

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You may be okay. I’ve found the Carmine Jewel stayed smaller than the Crimson Passion (now removed) and Juliet I’ve grown. You may just need to prune a bit to make it so you aren’t too cramped getting in and out of the car.

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