I have two sand cherry bushes I’m ready to put into the ground. For starters they are part of my plant library (38 varieties and counting). The question I have is whether the fruit quality and quantity is good enough to give them a prime spot, or if I should relegate them to the back of the lot. There is plenty of summer sun but not as much. Fresh eating is not a big concern.
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the ones ive tried from a friends bush were rather bland and astringent. they were dark purple when i picked them. wasnt a named cultivar either. maybe processed they will be better. reminded me of chokecherry but not as dry.
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Yeah steve gives a good description. Better than chokecherry but not as good as my local kansas sand hill plum. I have all 3. I would put them way in the back in a sunny spot. Drought hardy and good for something im sure., i like them ripe but i like standard sour cherries or sand hill plums much better.
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Put them where they will ‘look good’…the fruit might or might not be to your liking.
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The one time I tried chokecherry preserve i was rather impressed. Fruits with astringency work amazingly well for sauces and vinaigrettes. My daughter’s favorite cheesecake is chokeberry (aronia, not the Prunus virginiana one). She finds most other fruits on cheesecake too candy-sweet.
Once I retire I plan on running a backyard nursery. Out of the ordinary plants, specially anything with the word cherry on it, sells well. I need to stash a white sand cherry as well as a choke cherry tree somewhere.
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I bet the sand cherry are good for preserves. I havent tried preserving it yet. I just have 1 nice bush i planted 5+ years ago one each of sand and choke. Both have some suckers. But i havent tried either yet in preserves or anything. Just fresh. Sand has a good unique flavor and gets decent sweetness in the taste at the end, unique and worth keeping fresh imo. I like it and plan to plant out some seeds i gathered last week. I bet it would be great for flavor! Real dark! I got mine from montana so theyre hardy. Like full sun. 
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so, a few year on, how are the two plants and the fruit?
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Which species, Western (P. besseyi), or Eastern (P. pumila) ?
With Prunus pumila I can pass along that inland here in Michigan, it will be knee high at best, with very few cherries. But out on a Great Lakes sand dune it can occasionally break 6’ in height and be loaded with fruit. Even short plants on the dunes can have significantly more fruit than the inland plants.
It seems to thrive on that aerial moisture right along the shoreline. Has always seemed to me that it might like misting type irrigation. ?
I’m mentioning results with true natural plants. Plenty of Prunus besseyi has been planted in the East over the years.
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Unfortunately @don1357 has not been active since July of 2025.
I messaged him back in November, writing “I hope that everything is going well for you and you have just been busy with life.” I haven’t seen a response yet. @steveb4, did you ever hear back from him?
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and i havent either. hope he wasnt eaten by a grizzly.
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FYI for those interested – these are results of my ~deep dive on “Sand Cherry”.
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Sand Cherry appears to be also named, Hansen’s Bush Cherry. USDA describes “Prunus besseyi” as Western Sandcherry.
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i bought 4 bare root, “Hansen’s Bush Cherry, Prunus besseyi” from these folks, Hansen's Bush Cherry | USDA Zones 4-8 | 2-3 Foot | Fast-Growing Shrubs – Northern Ridge Nursery. i make no commission but they offer: 10% off + free shipping on bare roots for orders over $75 (use code NY26). i just made the order and never purchased from these folks before.
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per AI and verification
The species is divided into several varieties based on geographic region:
a. var. besseyi: Western Sand Cherry (found in central North America/Great Plains). USDA Plants Database
b. var. depressa: Eastern Sand Cherry (found in eastern Canada and northeastern U.S.). USDA Plants Database
c. var. pumila: Great Lakes Sand Cherry (found along the shores of the Great Lakes).
P. pumila - leaves narrowly oblanceolate with apex acute to acuminate and base narrowly cuneate, lustrous above, pale below.
Great Lakes Sand Cherry
d. var. susquehanae: Susquehana Sand Cherry (found in eastern and central regions).
P. susquehanae - leaves elliptic to ovate, obtuse to subacute at apex, acute to rounded at base, pale green above, glaucous below.
Sand Cherry -
quality content from yours truly and, a shameless plug for HEPPY – please subscribe! 2026 planting will be 150+ plants for a mere $4,953
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I’ve got a pair of the besseyi.
they taste awful. grow fast. planning to cut them to the ground come summer, and use them as coppicewood if they make any sprouts from the base after that. i don’t like them.
if anyone wants them locally you can have them, instead of me messing with them or killing em. i hear you can graft plum to them but i have 2 adult plum trees with plenty grafted varieties and don’t need more of that
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The black ice plum is supposedly a hybrid between it and a japanese plum, also black nanking is a hybrid between it and red nanking.
How heavy did they produce for you?
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Doing good! Prunus are slow producers… I got them small and they have been putting good growth but no cherries so far. Last year the bigger bush pushed flowers so I’m pretty confident it will push cherries this year.
As I think I mentioned, Sand cherries are not a variety but a whole genus; there is a wide variety of fruit quality, size, taste, etc. I have to wait for the fruit to find out what I have. Around me I know of bushes with large round fruit and good quality, and another cluster of bushes where the fruit is smaller, oval, but still good.
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‘Hansen’s’ bush cherry is a specific improved selection of sand cherry, and should not be applied to sand cherries/bush cherries other than that selection.
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I got my Prunus besseyi from a local Minnesota county native plant sale, advertised as local native food forest to share with wildlife. We historically could not grow sweet cherries here, so would not have anything that could compare to PNW quality cultivated cherries. For local Minnesota native plants, my Prunus besseyi are top-tier outstanding. They don’t require spraying here… yet. No black knot in 4 years on 10 plants. Their root structure, like Shagbark Hickory, is mostly a single big taproot, hence they do not support transplantation.
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i was skeptical of your answer (respectfully) but WOW, there the gentlemen is, Dr. N.E. Hansen (1866-1950). Yup, from South Dakota Agricultural College (now South Dakota State University).
“…[Dr. Hansen] picked the western sand cherry … This is an especially tough form of Prunus pumila … The Western form, Prunus pumila var. besseyi, had been named by Liberty Hyde Bailey after Charles Bessey, another of Hansen’s professors. Bessey had spoken of this plant – hardy to zone 2, drought-resistant, and bearing good crops of cherry-sized fruit – in glowing terms to the American Pomological Society in 1889. “No native fruit appears more promising,” he told them. In 1892 Hansen, Bessey’s assistant at that time, planted several thousand seedlings, and then selected those with the largest and best fruit. It took 14 generations before he released the ultimate ‘Hansen bush-cherry’ in 1941, a form with large fruit and small pits…”
https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/n-e-hanson-the-man-behind-the-purple-leaf-sand-cherry
then isn’t the scientific name (don’t laugh!), Prunus pumila var. besseyi ‘Hansen’? Or, Prunus besseyi ‘Hansen’? i’m a ‘plain jane gardener’ (no scientist) but i thought that’s how specific cultivars are distinguished (eg, the ‘Hansen’ variety of P. besseyi).
ok, well then, I have 4 incoming Hansen’s Bush Cherries! Love it!
someday i’ll hunt-down the (1) besseyi (not Hansen’s), (2) depressa, (3) pumila and (4) susquehanae (syn., cuneata). i’ll add ‘em to the exhibition, heppy.org/plants
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great to hear from you and it sound like they’ll arrive this year!! i’m getting 4 bare root Hansen’s this spring. they’ll be my first Prunus pumila genus … thingy variety grouping :). i’m putting them all on my radar! Happy gardening!
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Currently it seems that “besseyi” has been demoted to sub-taxa level rather than recognized as a distinct species. Therefore, although both versions of the name are considered synonyms, the one which is considered correct for use is Prunus pumila var. besseyi ‘Hansen’s’. I am not 100% sure if the cultivar name should be written as ‘Hansen’ or as ‘Hansen’s’, but since it is almost always referred to with the possessive “ ‘s”, I write it as ‘Hansen’s’.
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For hybridizing info regarding sand cherries, some of you may find this 1908 article by Hansen interesting:
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