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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-015
Sour Cherry
Prunus cerasus
A small, cold-hardy deciduous fruit tree grown for its tart, bright-red cherries used in pies, preserves and drying, blooming with white flowers in spring on wood that is self-fertile and needs no second tree for pollination. Considerably more cold-tolerant than sweet cherry, it grows best in full sun on moist, well-drained ground. Its shallow, freely suckering roots throw up new shoots around the base and its fruit self-sows readily where birds scatter the pits, so both need managing to keep it from thicketing.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–7
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moist · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 6.2–6.8
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 15–30 ft
- Mature spread
- Not yet recorded
- Plant spacing
- 14–18 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
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American Basswood
Tilia americana
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American Beech
Fagus grandifolia
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American Chestnut
Castanea dentata
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American Elm
Ulmus americana
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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