I bought a patio cherry (Prunus Avium ‘Merchant’) from Homebase at the weekend, and it states on the label that it is self-pollinating.
After a lot of googling, every single site says that this is not possible for this species and type of cherry…
Who’s lying to me? Homebase or Google?
Help!
by IndependentHour7
15 Comments
Like most cherries, it’s technically self-pollinating but you’ll have much better fruit set with a pollenizer. Grow it yourself and see if you’re happy with the amount of fruit you get by itself. If not, you need a pollenizer. You can even just collect pollen from another sweet cherry in a small plastic bag, and bring it back to your tree and hand pollinate. Don’t sweat it.
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I mean, Homebase sold me a kitchen and the appliances showed up a week late and the sink and dishwasher both didn’t fit. On that logic I’m gonna say yeah, they’re a lying shower of bastards.
My blueberries are self pollinating but still got two bushes to increase my chances.
Do not consider self pollination as the be all, end all. Most trees/plants work better when it has a partner. I’d also recommend that you check first before you buy another tree. To make sure you’re getting something you want, but that works for your needs.
I would honestly suggest a scion exchange and grafting another cherry onto your tree. Then it will truly be self pollinating.
There are definitely cherry, apricot, peach varieties that are better at self pollination and others that rely more on partner trees, preferably from other varieties that flower at the same time.
But as others have said, all of the prunus trees do better with a second tree and produce more, sometimes much more. In fact most fruit trees benefit from it.
I’m glad that someone here is excited about cherries because the cherry trees around me don’t taste great, attract the worst kinds of birds and animals, and the cherries turn into a cooked jam epoxy on anything unlucky enough to be underneath them during fruit season.
My cherry tree does just fine on its own. Flowers and fruits every year. Had it for about 10 years now, fruited every year. I’ve eaten exactly 1 cherry from it. Birds got the rest
Take this with a grain of salt but I asked the tree guy at my local nursery to help me pick out a small tree and told him I had a few options picked out but needed help deciding. I started walking towards this exact “self pollinating cherry” and before I got to it he asked if that’s what I was heading for and told me that he has never seen one NOT be a disappointment and urged me to keep on walking.
The guy plants and cares for trees all around the city so I took his word.
I’m in OKC (7a) if that helps. I wasn’t particularly set on a fruit tree though. I just wanted a small ornamental tree for a large flower bed in front of my house. I ended up bringing home a Merlot redbud from their clearance section instead.🤷♀️
This specific cultivar is not self fertile. It needs another cherry to produce fruit.
I have the Lapins variety of this species and it is self fertile.
the local grocery store here sells fruit trees during the planting season. they are never self pollinating. even worse they always have apple tree varieties that need specific other trees for pollinating. (apparently apple pollination can be complicated.)
Merchant does not appear to be self pollinating, at least from the half dozen websites I read about this cultivar.
Posting this as a primary comment so that OP sees this. Homebase is lying, all the sources I checked state that Merchant is not self-compatible. Most cherries (sweet cherries) are NOT self pollinating bees or no bees. Species in the genus Prunus have a mechanism called Gametophytic Self-Incompatibility (GSI) that prevents pollen from fertilizing the ovary of the same individual. Some species like peaches for example have a genetic mutation that breaks GSI allowing them to self pollinate, with bees of course. Some sweet cherries have a similar mutation. Unfortunately ‘Merchant’ is not one of these and will require a pollinizer that blooms during the same window.
I bought a similar sweet cherry variety from homebase with the same self-pollinating tag on it.
It’s been like 4-5 years and that tree has given us ONE cherry.
It’s still a lovely tree, I think you just need another nearby tree. I have heard people will cut a branch off another nearby blooming cherry and keep the end soaked like a flower, tied up in the branches of your cherry to help pollinate it.