Sweet Cherries are wildly popular, but in most areas north of zone 5, you’ll only ever taste those cherries if they’ve been trucked in to the local supermarket.
Absolutely! Is it easy? Not so much. It’s tough to find a sweet cherry tree that’s rated for climate zones any colder than zone five. They do exist, but they are harder to find and may be more expensive than some of the readily-available sweet cherry trees.
Alternatively, you may be able to pamper a sweet cherry enough to help it survive a gardening zone colder than it is rated for. You can sometimes achieve this through clever manipulation of gardening microclimates on your property, or through proper winterization of your fruit trees.
However, although sweet cherries take a little extra work, pie cherries and bush cherries rated to zones 4 & colder are very easy to find. Some bush cherry cultivars may be very comparable in taste to a sweet cherry (although size may be significantly smaller, depending on the type).
Theoretically, a sweet cherry that is rated cold-hardy to zone 4 won’t need any extra assistance to survive in that zone – but do you really want to leave it to chance? There are a few basic steps you can take to help your sweet cherry survive northern winters – think trunk protection (in any form – tubes, wraps, even paint!) for starters. Personally, I like the tubes because they are no fuss, also block rabbit browsing of the tender bark, and they fit the tree for years. Additionally, correctly winterizing sweet cherry trees should be an annual task for northern-zone gardeners.
There is a BIG difference between pie cherries and sweet cherries. A pie cherry is sour, and best used for processing into (you guessed it!) pies and other preserves. A sweet cherry is sweet enough for fresh eating.
In addition to the taste difference, the growth habits of the trees are completely different. Pie cherries are significantly cold-hardier than sweet cherries, and they tend to come in smaller sizes. Some of the most common pie cherries I’ve seen advertised include Montmorency and North Star, while popular sweet cherries include Stella, Bing, Rainier, and others. Unfortunately, none of the more popular sweet cherries are rated to zone 4.
While bush cherries are part of the same genus as the pie cherry, the true bush cherries make up a totally different species. The relation is basically equivalent to the difference between a horse and a zebra; cousins, yes, but definitely not the same.
Bush cherries grow in shrub-like form, have small fruit, and are extremely cold-hardy (much better than both the pie and the sweet cherry tree types).
Like pie cherries, the true bush cherry tends to be more sour – however, recent hybrids between Asian bush cherries and pie cherries have created a significantly improved “bush” cherry type shrub with larger, sweeter fruit.
Read more about growing bush cherries.
…Both. Asian bush cherries (also known as Nanking bush cherries, Mongolian bush cherries, and other names) tend to be fairly tart. However, hybridized bush cherry types are often bred for fruit quality – and that means better taste!
If you are looking for a sweeter bush cherry, you can usually tell by the pricetag. The Romance collection (such as the Carmine Jewel, the Romeo, the Cupid, and others) tends to be very sweet – but also more pricey than the widely-available, very-affordable Nanking.
Read more about growing bush cherries.
Start your tree research with the nursery’s summary of the cultivar you are hoping for. If the nursery doesn’t guarantee a tree’s survival in your climate zone, you are taking a gamble purchasing the tree. (All gardening is a gamble – but if you gamble on a tree the nursery won’t guarantee for your area, your won’t get your money back!).
You can also check in with your local agriculture extension office to see what cultivars they recommend for your county’s specific climate. They will (or should!) have the most practical information about your area’s winter temperature extremes and microclimates.
Additionally, you can find information online from nursery growing guides, research universities, and ag-extension office articles.
Read more about how to find fruit trees for zones 4 and colder.
Yes! There are multiple sweet cherry trees rated cold-hardy to zone 4. I haven’t personally tested them all (although I do have a Kristen that has survived a few winters so far), but the problem is you typically can’t get just one. In order to have adequate pollination, you need a separate tree of a different cultivar within pollination range – and you need to make sure you’ve picked a variety that blooms at the same time.
If you are planning on getting a tree NOT rated for the zone, you may be able to baby it enough to help it survive – but you shouldn’t hold the nursery company accountable for weather that is out of their control! I have several cherry trees that aren’t rated to my zone. That’s my decision, and the risk is on me, not the company that sold me the tree.
Read more about the Kristen Cherry Tree’s cold-hardiness.
…Maybe. I’ve seen multiple different companies advertising the Chelan Cherry Tree (a fairly-new sweet cherry cultivar) as cold-hardy to zone 3… but I’ve seen other sources that only rate the tree’s hardiness to zone 5. Two zones is a big difference! I have not personally grown the Chelan cherry as of the date of this article’s publication, so I can’t vouch for the tree one way or another. Is it on my wish-list? Yes. Do I trust the zone 3 rating? Well… I’m not sure.
Read more about the Chelan Cherry Tree’s cold-hardiness.
I’ve never seen one, and I don’t expect to! However, you can get bush cherries rated to zone 2 – and some of the hybridized bush cherries have a taste very comparable to a traditional sweet cherry. Hard to beat that combination!
If you are looking for sweeter bush cherries, don’t go for the Nanking. Some of the sweetest types are in the “Romance” series (Carmine Jewel, Romeo, etc.). The entire Romance series isn’t available for purchase by home gardeners yet (or at least it wasn’t at the time of this article’s publication). Other sweeter-than-Nanking varieties include the Joel, which is available from multiple nurseries.
Read more about growing bush cherries.
Have other questions about growing sweet cherries in zones 4 and colder? I highly recommend checking out articles from ag-extension offices in cold-weather states. There are multiple growing guides online; Michigan State University has a great summary of sweet cherries for the eastern USA, for starters, and New York’s Cornell University has several publications (including a nice writeup including sweet cherries suited and NOT suited for cold gardening zones).
There’s a lot of information out there, so don’t give up!