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Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
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Plant · P-390
Sweet Cherry
Prunus avium
Sweet Cherry is the wild ancestor of the orchard cherry, spread across Europe and western Asia and naturalised wherever birds have carried its seed. It needs a proper cold winter to break dormancy evenly - without one the bloom comes ragged and the crop is poor - so it fruits reliably only where winters run cold, and struggles wherever they turn mild and summers long, hot and humid. Where the climate suits it the reward is real: sweet, juicy fruit eaten raw or cooked into pies and preserves, plus an edible seed and a gum that weeps from wounds in the bark. Bees work its flowers hard for pollen and nectar, and the fruit people do not pick still feeds plenty of birds and mammals.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–8
- Soil
- Silt · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 4.5–7
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 15–30 ft
- Mature spread
- 15–30 ft
- Plant spacing
- 15–20 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
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American Chestnut
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American Elm
Ulmus americana
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American Holly
Ilex opaca
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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