Key Points
Dwarf or semi-dwarf cherry trees can grow indoors, but they require careful care, full sun, and simulated winter conditions to thrive.Keep soil moist but well-drained and provide six to eight hours of light.Hand-pollinate blossoms with a brush or cotton ball, and harvest ripe cherries in early summer.
It’s easy to grow certain kinds of fruit trees indoors, like citrus, which excel when planted in a container. So why not try bringing other types into your home, like a cherry tree?
It’s a lovely idea—and possible—but growing a cherry tree indoors is by no means easy. Harvesting homegrown cherries indoors is more labor-intensive than citrus, but if you can manage it, it’s incredibly rewarding. Here’s how experts say to do it.
Varieties
You can grow cherries indoors with an eye toward fruit, beauty, or both. You should look for dwarf and semi-dwarf varieties first and foremost, but since your fruit harvest will likely be minimal, you might also consider growing an ornamental cherry. That way, you can enjoy the annual blossoms.
Bing Cherry: This is a dwarf variety that will only grow a couple of feet tall—it still produces excellent cherries.Dwarf North Star: This cherry variety grows taller—upwards of 6 feet—but it’s still a manageable container size. The cherries have a pleasant tart taste.Prunus Snow Showers: For an ornamental tree, Snow Showers provides lovely white blossoms, with fun fall leaf colors.
Care Instructions
Growing a successful cherry tree requires careful care—especially when it’s in a container in your living room.
Water
As with many potted plants, you’ll probably need to water your indoor cherry tree once or twice a week, aiming to keep the surface soil moist to an inch or two.
You definitely don’t want your cherry tree standing for long periods in overly moist soil, so pot feet—small risers that lift the pot an inch or two above the ground—can be utilized to increase soil airflow and promote drainage.
Light and Temperature
One of the biggest challenges of growing cherries indoors is light. Cherry trees typically need full sun—six to eight hours daily—and that can be a tricky need to fulfill indoors. Placing your potted cherry in a large, south-facing window can help, but you may need supplemental grow lights in order to have a chance at success.
Unlike many other tropical house plants, you’ll need to simulate winter temperatures for these trees. “They require many weeks of chill temps (32 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to thrive and produce fruit,” says Sarah Stalker Aylward, an urban and interior landscape designer, and the creative director of Planterra. “They also require direct light, which is a very rare thing indoors, outside of a conservatory environment.”
Soil and Container
Standard potting soil is best for these projects. However, the soil needs to be well-draining and not so heavy that it will waterlog the cherry tree’s roots. Adequate drainage holes are important. Increase pot sizes occasionally as the tree grows; you may end up with a 10-gallon pot or larger, depending on the tree’s size.
Harvesting
Your indoor cherry tree can produce blossoms without aid, but if you’d like any of those blossoms to produce fruit, pollination is necessary.
Growing a tree indoors separates it from its natural insect environment, meaning that pollination must be done by hand. “[Using] something like a cotton ball or a small paintbrush, move the pollen from the anthers of one blossom to the stigma or another,” says Aylward.
Cherries are usually ready to harvest in early summer. Yours won’t ripen on the counter, so timing is important, especially since they reach peak sweetness just as the fruit’s color attains full richness. A ripe cherry should pluck easily off the tree.
Pruning
Pruning a dwarf cherry tree in a container is similar to pruning any fruit tree. Your main goals are to remove weak and damaged branches, as well as branches that are tangling up with others. Pruning for strength—so that the young tree develops a strong shape—is also important.
Comments are closed.