Nanking Cherry: An underrated fruit?

"Never feed cherries to pigs or advice to fools." - Irish Proverb.



Prunus tomentosa - Nanking Cherry

A fruiting bush that can grow fifteen feet high and get as wide (but generally much more short and squat), it starts producing fruit in the third or fourth year. There are some bushes reported to live up to fifty years old with care. The plant produce fruit in June from flowers that bloom on wood that is at least a year old. The species is reported to require cross pollination to produce fruit so it is recommended to have multiple plantings.  I have heard reports of self pollination however. It is reported to thrive in USDA zones 3-7.

Do you grow Nanking cherry? Do you have some favorite uses? Any tips?

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I may or may not of been to a big box store relating to the supplying of farm equipment and ended up coming home with a small nanking cherry plant.

I have planted a different variety of bush cherry before but I'm eager to diversify my selection in search of what does best in my climate. From what I read, it should flourish so I'm eager to get it in the ground. I may get a couple more plants to create a small edible hedge but I'm not so sure.

When I lived 120 miles south of where I do now, I planted two and they were growing nicely. But we moved before they bore fruit. I planted five up here but they're just not thriving. And they only die when the propane guy opens the truck door into them and snaps them off and then steps on the remaining broken stump. So I still have four. They're about 30" tall. They've put on maybe 6" in the three years they've been planted. I don't think they're a big winner here. (I was originally interested because of Sean at Edible Acres.)

some friends were moving away a few years ago and they gave us a number of plants that they hadn’t managed to plant yet. among them were two nanking cherries, one of which died after a year or so. the other is now about 6 feet tall and 8 across and yields a huge amount of cherries every year. nice early fruit, at about the same time as our goumis. i’ve thought about adding another nanking back into the mix, but it doesn’t seem necessary for pollination and space is at a premium.

i think it’s also worth pointing out that stone fruit generally do poorly on our property, probably because we live in a ditch without the best airflow. there are even a bunch of native plums on the property that i have gotten exactly two ripe plums from in the approximately 10 years we’ve been here. i had to remove all the peaches on the property since they never even got close to ripening. there’s an older sweet cherry tree that has similarly never fruited. nanking cherries don’t seem to have the same issues.

I like my nanking cherries, I have some that have white flowers and some with pink.

Some observations:
- Fruit is tasty
- Low maintenance, I have one in a dry garden and it seems to be doing ok
- In one of my gardens, it seems to attract Japanese beetles and can be used as a trap crop
- It seems to fruit all at once, would love to have it more gradual so I can snack on it over a longer time
- Propagation with cuttings: I have had no success rooting from cuttings, it takes a while for cuttings to root. The laziest successful approach is to put a rock on a branch close to the ground, then wait 1-2 years and a new plant will form (yes, it takes that long)
- My favorite function is that it can be used as dwarf rootstock for plums. Last year, I grafted a plum on one of the stems so I am patiently waiting for plums to fruit on them

M

I grew these and Hansen cherries for at least a decade. The Hansen’s were larger but the Nanking’s more prolific. I had Nanking’s I was able to divide by root division but others never tried to spread. They’re one of the main species I miss from my farm.

I had 2, in sandy soil and full sun, for a few years but eventually, they died. Perhaps I should have pruned the dickens out of them, or put them in a shadier location. Or added more fertilizer. So I think it is rather short lived. Birds are EXTREMELY fond of them.
But if I get  chance, I will grow some again. Mine made a yellow fruit with a red blush, eventually turning all red.
They definitely taste like cherries, even though they are *prunus* tomentosa. [Not a hint of plum in them!]
I wish there had been more flesh on the seeds: although they were nice and tasted good, there was more pit than cherry.
They were cut down last fall and I think I may get some sprouting for the ground as the stump wasn't technically dead.

Have you tried pruning your cherry bushes/ trees?  I pruned our Haralson apple tree and gooseberry bushes.  The squirrels love the apples & gooseberries, while the bunnies love to gnaw and chew on branches of both plants.

Mark Scofield

Nankings are good, and hardy too. We had a row of them at the hospital in Fairbanks, which yielded gallons every year; I used to scavenge them before they got ripped out for new construction. They're mild and tasty, if small. I've planted some around my place, but found that the voles love to girdle them and they usually are killed before they fruit. I have a couple now, I think, but still small. Well worth growing in the far north.

Mark Scofield wrote:Have you tried pruning your cherry bushes/ trees?  I pruned our Haralson apple tree and gooseberry bushes.  The squirrels love the apples & gooseberries, while the bunnies love to gnaw and chew on branches of both plants.

Mark Scofield

No. I know I should have as I ended up with a tangled mess, with lots of dead branches. So these 2 were neglected, also because birds are so fond of them that all I'd get was a couple here, a couple there. They are good, though. However, most of them were eaten before being ripe. I also have to fight them of on raspberries and apples.
I ended up cutting both about 1 ft above ground. If they come back, I promised myself I'd be more regular with the pruning. I've taken more time pruning my apple trees, and I also have one Haralson, among many other apple and crab trees, but even there, I'm not doing as good a job as I should. I do clip everything that comes from under a graft, dead branches and those that come back towards the center, but it's pretty much "self taught". I'm also pretty good at removing absolutely *every* apple that falls to the ground. As a result, I must say I've had impressive crops of healthy, clean/unblemished apples. If I could keep the birds at bay, my happiness would be complete!
I'm getting better at fertilizing regularly along the year because I have 33 chickens and I can capture most of their droppings on a poop boards. I spread the stuff under all my trees, a "handful" here, a handful there, away from the trunk because the stuff is still "raw", not composted.

We have probably 10 or 12 nankings on out property in central Virginia. They started fruiting for us two years ago after three years of growing. As a and edible fruit, I honestly find them overrated. If a perfectly ripe sour cherry scores a 10 on flavor and a 6 on ease of processing, Nanking cherries are a 6 on flavor and 3 on processing. They are excellent as ornamentals with their stunningly white early blooms, and they appear to be great for wildlife, but we have decided that we don’t want to plant any more. For more cherries, we’ll add more sour cherry trees, which do extremely well in our climate, and for fruit bearing shrubs, blueberries and honeyberries are more desirable for their fruit.

Nanking cherties are not actually cherries, but are a close relative of plums and can be pollinized by them.
Most Nankings are not really self fertile just because they bear fruit when there is no nearby Nanking to pollinate them.  The secret is wild  or domestic plums growing within flight range of the local bees. Wild plums blend in so well that they can be hard to see and are often overlooked.
I love Nanking cherries and they do well for me in zone 4 in heavy clay soil. I especially like the fact that they come true from seed most of the time. This has saved me a ton of money. I get about a 50% germination rate from them.

Victor Johanson wrote:Well worth growing in the far north.

Nanking cherries were popular for a long time here, simply for their cold hardiness. These days there are many cold-hardy cherry varieties that produce more and better fruit. Still, if I inherited a row of Nankings I wouldn't chop them out -- they feed pollinators and birds, and with a light frost might make a decent fruit wine.

mary yett wrote:Nanking cherties are not actually cherries, but are a close relative of plums and can be pollinized by them.
Most Nankings are not really self fertile just because they bear fruit when there is no nearby Nanking to pollinate them.  The secret is wild  or domestic plums growing within flight range of the local bees. Wild plums blend in so well that they can be hard to see and are often overlooked.
I love Nanking cherries and they do well for me in zone 4 in heavy clay soil. I especially like the fact that they come true from seed most of the time. This has saved me a ton of money. I get about a 50% germination rate from them.

Mary, that's brilliant. Thanks for sharing this intel!

that sure answers why my single bush fruits so well!

Finally got around to planning a Nanking Cherry bush. I decided to plant it in a newly chipped garden space in a pocket of fertility to see how it fairs. It should get plenty of light and is at the top of a hillside so it shouldn't have wet feet.

I  planted 3 of those same brand of nankings, from the local tractor supply store, about 2 weeks ago.  The chickens ate the leaves off of one of them, but it's already got a couple baby leaves growing back, so I think it'll be okay.

Cherries and plums are all in the "prunus" genus along with plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds.
Although not all can "intermarry" or get grafted on each other, most of these drupes give you a better crop if you plant more than if planted alone.
I cracked and just bought another Nanking cherry 'bush' [prunus tomentosa] after both of mine died last year. One big reason is that it didn't branch until 3 ft off the ground like the one Timothy shows. [I'm secretly hoping that just like all the mulberry "bushes" and "trees" I raised from seed, I can opt to train them as bushes or trees. [The tree would be dwarf anyway, which would make it easier to harvest the fruit. [They are pretty good]
Mulberries are particularly amenable to be trained as either. That can come in handy if you want your chickens to have them.
James, if you don't want the chickens to torment your Nanking, you may want to put an apron around, or some wire protection: My little Velociraptors defoliate everything I plant in their yard so I started to place these rubber aprons: When they don't pick every leaf, they scratch the ground right against the trunk to take their dust bath! [those rubber aprons are expensive, but they can be reused year after year to protect the roots of the younger trees, so...
If you Google "Drip Depot Landscaping Tree Ring - Recycled Rubber" you'll see what I mean.
We have many, many wild cherry trees here, We tend to have the "serotina" type. However, mine are not as tart as advertised. In fact, if you wait util it is completely ripe, you can eat them right off the bush.

Whenever I get a crack in one of my many 5 gallon buckets, I cut the bottom out to make a short tube, and I put those over my baby plants to keep the chickens out. But that's only when I intentionally fence them in somewhere with plants I don't want them to eat. The little buzzards ate my baby nanking when I let them out to wander the yard while I changed their litter.