I wonder how dwarfing it would be? Like Gisella 5 or 3, or even smaller? Eventually I may try. I just harvested a couple suckers from a Crimson Passion and planted them on a dry, sunny hill.
When I first started planting fruit, I was silly enough to think I wouldn’t take up the entire lawn and put a lot of plants on this hill. Turns out that blueberries and currants aren’t the best bets in hot, dry area. Though most have survived, I’m not the best about watering (those drip lines you see in the picture were last used 3+ years ago). Today, I planted these suckers and some grape vines, which I think may be more suited…
One note on getting the Crimson Passion to sucker. I have found exactly 0 suckers from all my CP and Carmine Jewels, with the exception of this one plant which has 3. It seems that keeping it in a 2-3 gallon plastic pot, then waiting for it to send roots out the holes is the way to get it to make suckers. I’m not sure how long it took, as the plant has been growing that way for a while(2 years?). I eventually decided to just let it grow that way, as it seemed to be growing decently- I’d set it back more by trying to get rid of the pot.
This hill isn’t normally so bare looking. It was filled with weeds before I spent a couple hours yesterday pulling them. I need to find a good, easy to spread mulch, if such a thing exists- woodchips is a lot of work to get into place. Maybe I’ll try landscape fabric + a few chips to hold it down.
Looks like a good plan Bob! CJ suckers like crazy when it gets old enough. I’m starting to suspect the cj’s are not the dwarfs we thought they were. They were advertised as 6’ when grown and some of mine are nearly a couple of feet taller. CP might be the same way.
I’m doing more cherry grafting experiments this year and will let you know how those go. My previous cherry grafting experiments were overall highly successful. This year I’m going to try and dwarf some full size cherries and increase size on some dwarfs all with an end goal of increasing production. Sour , sweet and interspecific hybrids are on my list.
I grafted sweet cherry scions to my mature trees 1st year sproats (for fun/pollination) and looks like 90%+ takes putting out leaves and some flowers. I grafted at budswell (large buds but not quite green) with scions at the same stage of growth (helped sister inlaw start taming her 100+ year old neglected trees) so i would say they appear to relatively easy in my climate and siyuation
My sweet cherry grafts this year are just sitting there with buds that turned green. For ages! We’ve been warm (70s and 80s). I had great success other years. It could be the wood (most of the wood from this vendor wasn’t dormant enough for here).
Anyone know how long they can sit there green and still make it? I have them shaded with aluminum foil since we got into the mid 80s.
My grafts from last year from @Drew51 's wood are gorgeous. Thanks again, Drew
it’s been grafted for several years now. They are bigger branches now (beside some lower than 4’ was chewed by rabbits) . I don’t see obvious compatibility issues. I used carmine Jewel as rootstock grafted Utah giant, bing,black tartaric, they are also growing normal.
Thank you, Annie! You are probably the first person who has tried such grafting experiments. How’s the fruiting? I would expect less than using a typical rootstock.
Not too many fruits on the branches. Partly may due to the rootstock, but more so due to my neglecting. The grafts weren’t intended as major fruit producers, rather to have extra cultivars in case the sweet cherry trees dies. It indeed died few years ago with bacteria canker.
I went to a friend of mine couple of weeks ago and saw her 3 years
old Stella has about a foot long canker on the trunck, the bark turned dark and sunk. But it seems does not affect the tree’s growth at this point.
What is the best way to treat the tree with such canker?
