Are there any sand cherry strains cultivated for fruit quality? The only ones I have had were grown from seed. They were insipid and astringent when ripe. They grow amazingly well here though with no inputs (Reno).
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Prunus pumila var.besseyi ‘Hansen’ is the only cultivar I know of. Everything else seams to be a hybrid of western sand and chery-plum for the purple foliage.
Hansen’s Bush Cherry | Gurney’s Seed & Nursery Co. (gurneys.com)
also check ebay, etsy,
I planted a couple last year and had maybe 3 fruit set this year so I will not be able to comment on flavor or productively for a while.
quick search before posting. I found more cultivar
Pawnee Butte Sand Cherry – Adams County Extension (colostate.edu)
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Thank you. All the Hansen’s bush cherries I’ve seen sold are actually seedlings, thereby not true to type. Looks like the selections you linked to are all gown for ornamental value, rather than fruit quality.
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I got mine from Gurneys so hopefuly they grow true. But they are always sold in groups so there has to be some seedlingness to them. At least they should all be seedlings of the same quality fruiting stock.
Its a shame the only focus seems to be on ornimentals. But all the ornimentsls seem to not bare fruit or at least that well.
Came across this though sand cherry x apricot
Of coruse thats europeian release
Cherrycot Prunus Aprikya. Bush. 12ltr Pot - Eden Park Garden Centre (epgc-onlineshop.co.uk)
Hansen’s Bush Cherry is a seed grown variety, not a cultivar. He selected it by raising 1,000’s of seedlings, removing poor quality and only saving superior ones over generations. The only cultivar I know of still in existence is a yellow Ukrainian one; “Sonechko”? Means ‘little sun’ in Ukrainian language. An albino cultivar existed in USA but is lost.
I’m surprised yours weren’t good, mine grown in a hot climate were always sweet, pulpy fruit loosing astringency when fully ripe. Excellent culinary uses, no aroma though, not strongly flavored.
It’s a common landscape bush in these parts as well. Most of the bushes I’ve seen are very productive. I have seen both black and yellow when ripe sand cherries. I’ve sampled quite a few hoping to find a good one, but no luck as of yet. Most are astringent until starting to shrivel on the bush. So far, of the ones I have found that are not astringent, lack in flavor.
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My Hansen’s and some wild black fruited ones along with the hybrids like “Oka”, “Deep Purple”, “Compass” etc were all astringent with bitter skin until ripe to the point of shriveling. Great jams.
While xeriscape comptabable, desert quality might be limited by the limited water.
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Someone on this forum told me they’re nasty astringent in a cold climate; Canada?
Are there any sand cherry varieties that grow well on moist clay soil? My 10 year old sand cherry finally succumbed this spring, but it has been getting smaller every year for a decade. They have been recommended here in the past as a pollinator for later blooming hybrid plums. My sand cherry has never bloomed. I think it’s name is telling me something
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A customer’s dryish clay on a breezy slope grew sand cherries fairly well. Can you graft it onto cerasifera rootstock? Damp clay doesn’t seem to bother myrobalan.