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(Apparently The Powers That Be feel that "sour cherry" is not a sufficiently slappy-happy term, and so these are now marketed as "pie cherries" or "tart cherries". What's in a name? Money.)
WSU lists one sour-cherry type, Montmorency, which seems the consensus choice for sour cherries (and it makes a fine cross-pollinator for sweet cherries, if you need one). We wouldn't suggest growing these unless you like to make a lot of cherry pies.
Unlike much tree fruit, many sweet-cherry types are self-fertile. Unless you are a tremendous cherry fan, or have a very large household, chances are that one tree's production will suffice for you; if so, be sure to select a self-fertile type.
Also as with other tree fruit, we look for as much cold-hardiness as we can get, to maximize survival chances during that once-a-decade (or whatever) really deep winter.
The chief problem specific to cherries is what is called "cracking", a splitting of the skin that results from uneven growth, which, in turn, is usually from an uneven supply of water, meaning irregular rainfall. Here in the dry interior, where home growers typically hand-water or drip-irrigate, crack-resistance is not such a critical element in a cultivar's qualities.
Here are some of (perhaps most of, when true availability is considered) the cultivars that are self-fruitful; unless otherwise noted, nominal hardiness is Zone 5. Some of these notes are from growers, so take the flavor descriptions with a grain of salt. Note that the Bing cherry type is--owing to its ubiquity, not necessarily its quality--more or less the standard for evaluating taste and ripening time; on the whole, cherries are not a fall-freeze problem, virtually all types ripening before August.
After much review of the various sources of that information, it seemed clear to us that the first choice is White Gold, with Black Gold as a strong runner-up for those who prefer a dark-red fruit.
They are treated much like other fruit trees. Rather than re-invent the wheel, we here refer you to a few sites with decent or better growing information:
Besides any links presented above on this page, the following ought to be especially helpful:
(And don't forget that we have listings of nurseries on our suppliers page.)
The cherry belongs to that familiar fruiting family, the Rosaceae, its genus being Prunus--placing it with almonds, peaches, plums, apricots, and bird cherries. The subgenus, Cerasus, is distinguished by having its flowers in small corymbs of several together (not singly, nor in racemes), and by having a smooth fruit with only a weak (or no) groove along one side.
Eating cherries derive primarily from two species, the Wild Cherry (P. avium), source of the Sweet Cherry, to which most cherry cultivars belong, and the Sour Cherry (P. cerasus), used mainly for cooking and jam making.
The subgenus is native to the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with two species in North America, three in Europe, and the remainder in Asia. The word "cherry" comes from the French word cerise, which comes in turn from the Latin words cerasum and Cerasus (the classical name of the modern city of Giresun in Turkey).
Cherries were known and prized even in antiquity, in both Europe and Asia, where their history goes back some six thousand years.
Traverse City, Michigan, the self-styled "Cherry Capitol of the World, hosts an annual National Cherry Festival; besides such jollities as a cherry-pit spitting contest and the inevitable pie-eating contest, they have baked some of the world's largest cherry pies, the latest, in 1987, having been 17½ feet in diameter, weighing in at 28,350 pounds. Yum. Yum. You can visit The Unofficial National Cherry Home Page for more information.
If you find this site interesting or useful, please link to it on your site by cutting and pasting this HTML:
The <a href="http://growingtaste.com/"><b>Growing Taste</b></a> Vegetable-Gardening Site
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