Prunus avium Bing (Sweet Cherry)

Famed for its heavy crops of delightfully sweet cherries, Prunus avium 'Bing' is a large cherry tree boasting an abundance of sweetly scented white flowers clustered along the branches in groups of two to five in early spring. They are followed by a heavy crop of large, heart-shaped, dark, mahogany-red, delightfully sweet cherries in early-mid summer. The flesh is firm, meaty, purple-red flesh with a semi-free stone. They are excellent for eating fresh, canning, or preserves. The fruit tends to crack in wet weather. Its spreading canopy is clothed all summer long in smooth, dark green, deciduous leaves. Equally attractive is the smooth, glossy, reddish bark studded with horizontal, corky stripes. Requires cross-pollination with a compatible variety with the same bloom time such as Stella, Black Tartarian, or Rainier for best production.

• Grows up to 35 ft. tall (10 m) and 25 ft. wide (7 m) at maturity. Dwarf varieties grow up to 12-15 ft. tall and wide (3-4m).
• Performs best in full sun in moist, relatively fertile, well-drained soils. Sweet cherries are best suited to fan-training, so they can be netted against bird damage and protected from frosts.
• This cherry tree has a chill hours requirement of 700-800 (hours of temperatures below 45ºF (7ºC) in the winter for their buds to open in the spring)
• Standard trees will produce fruit in 5-6 years, and a mature tree will provide up to 50-100 pounds of cherries per year.
• Train fan-trained trees in spring. Prune established fans and carry out routine pruning on established cherry trees when harvesting the fruits in summer. Dead, weak, or unnecessary branches can be pruned annually in late winter or early spring. Otherwise, little or no pruning is needed.
• Protect from birds that damage buds and eat the fruit. May suffer from aphids, caterpillars, leaf-mining moths, winter moth caterpillars, silver leaf, bacterial canker, and blossom wilt.
• Propagate by chip budding or grafting on clonal rootstock for fruit.
• Toxic to dogs, toxic to cats, toxic to horses.
• Prunus avium species is native to Asia and Europe.
• Find where this species is invasive in the United States.
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