Give your tree the best start
Help your new tree establish quickly with our essential tree planting kit. It contains everything needed to support healthy root development and protect your tree while it settles into its new home.
20% off
20% off
5ft 'Karina' Cherry Tree | Colt Semi Vigorous Rootstock | 9L Pot One of the late black cherry varieties, this tree...
One of the late black cherry varieties, this tree fruits heavy and regular crops. The fruits are large, sweet, and full of juice, perfect to eat fresh, or to make into pie fillings, liqueurs, or crumbles.
Position
Full sun
Flowering period
April - May
Soil type
All soil types
Hardiness
Fully hardy
Cherry trees are easy to grow. Your tree's growth and output will likely be fine providing you followed our planting and care instructions. Below we address some common queries:
If your plants are looking a little wilted right now, don't worry! Plants like to be filled with water to keep their structure, and when it's hot that water evaporates.
Just give them an off-schedule watering and they'll be right as rain in no time! Be careful not to flood them - plants don't like extremes.
Key is to regularly water newly-planted trees, at least bimonthly for two months. It is also important to ensure adequate spacing between trees with 3-3.5m between Gisela 5 and 4.5-5m between Colt rootstock trees.
Bare root & containerised trees have different planting requirements. With bare root, it is important to soak your tree's roots in water for up to 2 hours before planting, while with containerised trees it is important to drench your tree's rootball. With bare root it can be useful to prune woody roots back a few inches, while with containerised trees, it is important to free any spiralized roots growing around the rootball's circumference. With bare root trees, dig a hole so as to ensure the graft point is above the soil, while with containerised trees, ensure the pot sits no lower than an inch below ground.
Bare root & containerised trees also share planting requirements. Dig a hole twice the radius of the rootball. Stake your tree no more than 2-3 inches from the stem, pointing away from the prevailing wind. Fill the hole with a mix of compost and garden soil, and add fertiliser and mycorrhizal fungi. Do not compress the soil. Give your tree a good watering. Add mulch on top whether bark and wood chippings, compost, manure, leaf-mould and stones. Make sure mulch doesn't touch the stem. Tie the stake to your tree, leaving space for growth. Place a rabbit guard around your tree.
Apply fertiliser and replace decomposed mulch come spring. Check ties to ensure there is no rubbing. Collect fallen leaves in autumn.
Fruit trees will only produce fruit if their flowers have been pollinated. This is usually done by pollinating insects, which transfer pollen from one flower to another. Honeybees, the main pollinating insect, will travel several miles in search of blossom, so if there is another compatible cherry in that radius your tree will produce fruit.
Some cherry trees are self-fertile while others require a compatible pollination partner from the same or neighbouring pollination group. Self-fertile varieties will produce fruit without a pollination partner, but benefit from a partner for heavier crops. Due to genetic similarity, it's not guaranteed two self-sterile cherries will pollinate one another, so we recommend you buy a self-fertile variety that can pollinate itself and any self-sterile varity. Cherry blossom trees can't pollinate cherry fruit trees, although sweet and sour cherries can pollinate one another.
Help your new tree establish quickly with our essential tree planting kit. It contains everything needed to support healthy root development and protect your tree while it settles into its new home.
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