🍒 Sweet Cherry
Prunus avium
Summer's candy, with a tree attached.
Sun
Full sun, 6–8 hrs
Days to harvest
4–7 years to full production
Spacing
15–20 ft (dwarfs: 8–10 ft)
Soil pH
6.0–7.0
How to grow
Sweet cherries need winter chill — 700+ hours for most varieties — which rules out nearly all of Florida (sour cherries and low-chill types are the warm-climate workaround). Plant grafted trees in well-drained soil; cherries despise wet feet. Most need a pollination partner, so check compatibility charts before buying. Net the trees or the birds will harvest before you do.
Water & feeding
Deep weekly watering during fruit development; consistent moisture prevents split fruit. Mulch the root zone but keep it off the trunk.
Common problems
- Birds (the number one cherry pest — netting is the only real defense)
- Brown rot on fruit in humid weather
- Bacterial canker on trunks and branches
- Fruit cracking after rain near harvest
Harvest
Pick when fully colored and sweet — taste-test, since color alone lies. Harvest with stems attached for longer storage. In warm zones, low-chill varieties like Minnie Royal ripen in late spring.
Nerdy fact: Sweet cherries are one of the few fruits where birds are genuinely the primary agricultural pest worldwide — commercial orchards lose enormous crops to them. Your backyard tree is essentially running a bird restaurant with a cherry theme.