Growing & grafting cherries

I have several saved pits from sweet black cherries that I plan on growing into natural trees, but heard somewhere that you have to have a different cherry type (tart) to pollinate them.  Is this true? Can I use a different sweet type like Ranier to pollinate?

Also, I currently have an ornamental tree that once had red leaves, but was all but dead in early 2019, so I did some extreme pruning in an effort to save it.  I had to go below the graft, so the tree that is growing is from the original rootstock which I think is cherry based on the now green leaf shape & bark pattern.  It is very healthy now due to annual pruning, but in about 4 years, it's never so much as flowered or fruited.  It's got maybe another year or two before I can't reach the top to prune with a pole pruner, so I'm considering my options.  

I'm thinking about grafting some fruiting cherry branches onto it.  If that works, I'll likely convert the whole tree to a multi-variety cherry tree.  I've heard that stone fruits (peaches, plums, cherries, etc. can be grafted together, though I'm not sure if that's true either.

Anyone out there have experience with this, or know where to get grafting scions for cherries?  I've seen orchards cut all the branches off established rootstock to graft new varieties of peaches or apples onto to "freshen" the tree.  I know I have some research to do, but I didn't know if I had it all wrong or if I was going down the right path?

I believe you can use sweet cherries to pollinate sweet cherries.

Sources of cherry scionwood:

Burnt Ridge Nursery Has 19 different cherry scion wood varieties. Search cherry scion on their site.
Fruitwood Nursery Has 24 different cherry scions.
Skipley Farm Has 14 cherry scions.

Some sources only list what's available just before they start taking orders. Most sources begin taking orders in December and start running out of items as early as, possibly, mid  January.

There's also the Scion Exchange where you can exchange scions with other members. I'm a new member and haven't done an exchange. I'm wondering if scions are shipped to members if you don't have a variety that the member needs.

I have successfully grafted a Golden Delicious to an old Yellow Transparent apple tree and a Shendoah pear to a Bradford pear. I also have a young apple graft that starts out with a semi full M111 rootstock to which I grafted an M7 semi-dwarf. That gave me a semi=dwarf tree on a semi-full rootstock. To that I've so far grafted 4 different old apple varieties. One problem with that is that some of the grafts disappear so it becomes difficult to keep track of what's where. I've also planted 4 different bare root apple seedlings in one oversize hole.

So far it appears to me as though it takes just as long to get production out of a graft to a mature tree as it does from a young seedling. The Golden Delicious graft to the mature Yellow Transparent has gone 4 years without production. Golden Delicious is said (by some) to be a precocious variety. But then one graft is not a lot of experience.

Thank you for the links and for sharing your grafting experience.  Part of me thinks the tree is old enough to have at least blossomed if it were going to, based solely on the age of the rootstock.  However, if it's as you say that a graft can take the same amount of time to fruit as the tree itself, then maybe I'm rushing a bit.  I have no way of knowing what variety of rootstock was used, but I've read that commonly used rootstock come from "wild" cherry for it's strength, then a known varietal is then grafted onto the rootstock.  At this point, I feel the tree is healthy and strong enough to attempt a few scion grafts, so I might just give it a try.  I won't have any scion wood to trade, so I'll more than likely just buy some sweet cherry scions.  At least this way I'll know what kind of results to expect instead of the mystery that I have now.

If you graft to your cherry root make sure to leave some "nurse branches" to give support to the roots while your grafts take. IF you cut much of the tree back and do the grafts the tree will grow like crazy. Be sure to keep the growth trimmed so that the growth from your grafts gets sunlight. After all the new growth you may find much better graft site choices on all that new growth the following year.

It's my opinion that you need to do the grafts to an in the ground tree while both the tree and the scions are dormant. Also the tree should remain dormant for about three weeks after grafting to give the graft a chance to heal before the tree needs to attempt to grow thru the graft union. That means you need to receive your scions so make sure your supplier is willing to ship early. However some folks say you should do the grafting when the tree is actively growing.

If you graft say a pencil sized scion to an inch diameter or more branch/limb you might want to use grafting wax. Don't attempt to use "Gulf wax" from the supermarket. You need grafting wax  which has other ingredients like tallow (sic?) to keep it pliable while the tree blows in the wind.

I'd recommend you order more than one scion of each variety you wish to add to your tree. They're not all going to take. You might also consider grafting scions to purchased rootstocks and plant them all in one hole. That would give you an alternate option. A place for a "backup" source of future scions. And possibly if you can find rootstocks and scions from the same source they will , maybe, be both still dormant when you receive them.

Hope I'm not overwhelming you. I hope someone comes in with an opinion on when to graft in relation to dormancy. And good luck. Enjoy the cherries.

Thanks John, I do my heavy pruning during dormancy before the buds open (works great for roses too).  That has worked well for me so far since all the stored energy to "push" into spring growth will be redirected toward the remaining branches.  I've seen branches that were broken off in storms continue to open buds & leaf out weeks after being removed from the tree, but I always thought you'd want active growth during a graft to encourage it "taking".  Many years ago I was really fascinated with plant propagation to include grafting, & knew much more about it then than I can recall now.  I agree that dormant trees heal better, so maybe timing the graft to be in place a couple weeks before spring budding would be the best of both worlds.  Dormant enough to heal well, but flowing sap being pushed for new growth.

We have an abundance of wild cherries on our property so I'll be interested in what you learn from your experiment with grafting onto your tree. I've toyed with the idea of getting some sweet cherries to graft onto some of the endless seedlings that pop up all over the place. I just tried grafting with plums and apples this spring and it was a lot of fun and so far very successful (I only lost two grafts out of twenty at this point 6 months later!). I've heard that cherries are harder though.

Reviving my own thread here...

I was looking at my cherry tree to determine how I'll be pruning it during dormancy, and am ready to try grafting fruiting scions onto it while I prune this winter.  I checked out some websites for grafting scion wood, and personally feel the prices are a bit high for an experimental project.  I never got around to growing a bunch of seedlings yet, but since we're in dormancy now, I thought I'd ask.

Does anyone have any fruiting cherry or other stone fruit trees that they will be pruning this winter?  

I don't care what varieties they are, just that they have edible fruit.  I'd be willing to trade seeds, or pay for a flat rate box full of scion wood.