Any experience with Korean Bush Cherry? Prunus Japonica.

I'm interested in the Korean Bush Cherry (Prunus Japonica) as a possible addition to my backyard but I'm not finding much info on the google search. I have several different fruits and berries in my small, fledgling forest garden and I'm looking for something new to add. I only have so much room left in the yard so I'd rather not plant a so-so plant.

Questions:

Does it produce much fruit? I'm seeing varying info.
Does the fruit taste good?
Is the plant drought tolerant? I'm higher elevation with around 11-13 inches of rain a year.

Any other info would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hey William, I have grown nanking cherries but not the korean bush. Looks pretty good though.

http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Prunus+japonica

Yeah I saw that too. Great information but I'm still wondering if it provides abundant fruit. Some of the pictures I've come up with make it look like scattered, low-yield fruit. Also, it sounds like there's a large seed and I was wondering if that's a pain to deal with or not so bad.

I just bought one from great escape farms. The single bush he has in his suburban yard produces, according to him, sufficient fruit, but not nearly as much as his abundant nankings. I suspect the abundant fruiting requires two seed- started plants (not clones). That might be the reason for the widely different reports online.

I agree with Lina.

I have a young one and really like it. It blooms prolifically, so I assume if I had a pollination partner I'd get a bunch of fruit. Our summers are hot and dry, and even young and planted in June it did OK with just once a week watering. The voles ate a bunch of its roots and it still survived. I imagine it's drought tolerant once established, and it supposedly tolerates wet soil if that's an issue for anyone. The one Cherry it had was beautiful and tasty. It was bright red and translucent.

Yikes - prolific blooms and one fruit?
Sounds to me like a lot of individual variability in how much fruit you get from a lone tree. That could also explain all the conflicting advice.

No, I mean that when I bought it it had one fruit on it. It was smaller then and it's likely the nursery had removed all noticeable blossoms and one had escaped them.  THIS year had prolific bloom and a good fruit set.  Sorry if I was unclear!

Shortly after I started this post (4 years ago) I bought a Korean Bush Cherry (Prunus Japonica) and it has been less than impressive. The plant hasn't grown much and it never even flowered. Maybe it's a dud or maybe it doesn't like the spot it was planted in, but I finally gave up and demoted the plant to the back corner of the yard. On the other hand, my Nanking Cherry (Prunus Tomentosa) has been prolific, so I guess I'll just stick with that.

How is your Korean Cherry doing? I have a recent post about mine.

They do grow slowly.

I  have been growing Korean bush cherries for about a decade? .   It is only a fairly small bush, like the size of a human, but wider.  It has many cherries. They are very small, like blueberry sized.  The flavor is nice but not very interesting.  To clarify, I like pie cherries better than sweet cherries (the kind you find in a grocery store)  because pie cherries have so much more flavor.  I think I'm going to donate it to a nearby school, where the kids are likely to be more excited about them than I am.  But to each her own.  

JohN S
PDX OR