Perennial / Desiduous Trees / Sweet Cherry, Prunus avium, Mazzard Cherry Tree
 
 
  •   Plant name - Prunus avium
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  •   Common name - sweet cherry
  •   Plant type - Desiduous
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  •   Vegetation type - Perennial
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  •   Growth rate - Medium
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  •   Leaf / Flower color - Green / Pink
  •   Other names - Mazzard
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    Description :
        Prunus avium is a deciduous tree growing to 15–32 m (50–100 ft) tall, with a trunk up to 1.5 m (5 ft) in diameter. Young trees show strong apical dominance with a straight trunk and symmetrical conical crown, becoming rounded to irregular on old trees. The bark is smooth purplish-brown with prominent horizontal grey-brown lenticels on young trees, becoming thick dark blackish-brown and fissured on old trees.
        The leaves are alternate, simple ovoid-acute, 7–14 cm (3–6 in) long and 4–7 cm (2–3 in) broad, glabrous matt or sub-shiny green above, variably finely downy beneath, with a serrated margin and an acuminate tip, with a green or reddish petiole 2–3.5 cm (0.8–1.4 in) long bearing two to five small red glands. The tip of each serrated edge of the leaves also bear small red glands. In autumn, the leaves turn orange, pink or red before falling.
        The flowers are produced in early spring at the same time as the new leaves, borne in corymbs of two to six together, each flower pendent on a 2–5 cm (0.8–2 in) peduncle, 2.5–3.5 cm (1–1.4 in) in diameter, with five pure white petals, yellowish stamens, and a superior ovary; they are hermaphroditic, and pollinated by bees.
        The fruit is a drupe 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) in diameter (larger in some cultivated selections), bright red to dark purple when mature in midsummer, edible, variably sweet to somewhat astringent and bitter to eat fresh. Each fruit contains a single hard-shelled stone 8–12 mm long, 7–10 mm wide and 6–8 mm thick, grooved along the flattest edge; the seed (kernel) inside the stone is 6–8 mm long. .
     
     Growing Instructions :
    * Fill a dark-colored jar about halfway with water-moistened peat moss or vermiculite. Place your cherry pits inside the jar, too, then sprinkle a couple of inches of moss or vermiculite on top of them. Loosely cover the jar with its lid.
    * Refrigerate the cherry pits for at least eight weeks at a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Periodically re-moisten the vermiculite or moss bedding material with water from a spray bottle---it should never be soaking wet, just damp.
    * Plant the cherry pit outside once all danger of a hard frost has passed. Plant several pits together in the same hole, as the seeds don't always sprout. (Or, they may take a very long time to sprout.) Plant the pits twice as deep as they are large. For example, if the pits are each 1/4-inch across, plant them 1/2-inch deep.
    * Cover the planted pits with sand to help keep soil from caking over them and prevent germination. Bend the 1-foot-by-1-foot piece of chicken wire into the shape of a shallow box and place this carefully over where you planted the seeds. Once you press the edges of the box into the soil, there should still be at least an inch or two between the soil's surface and the chicken wire, so that your cherry pits have room to begin sprouting. The chicken wire will help keep squirrels and other pests from digging your cherry pits up.
    * Keep the sand and soil around the cherry pits damp, but not soaked, as you wait for them to germinate. This takes some patience---while you may see results within a couple of months, some gardeners have reported that their cherry pits took up to a year to actually germinate and produce sprouts.