Dwarf cherry tree

[magicmarigold]

Hello all, I am currently sitting out the garden admiring my plants and I've been wondering about my dwarf cherry tree. It's the type that's like a stick of leaves... (I don't know the technical terms, I just call it the cherry stick...
Its only been planted since this winter in a large pot and has rewarded me with one cherry this year if it hangs on in there and ripens that is. However I'm just wondering how on earth this thing actually grows! It seems to be putting out a new branch shoot thing from the very top that's veering out sideways, does it grow branches? Does it stay like a stick?? Do I prune it? The website and instructions that came with it were very helpfully for a normal sized tree and not a cherry stick like mine.

It's a Sylvia mini fruit tree or patio tree and yes it was an impulse buy when I was ordering my blackberries ha

Thank you in advance!

[Guest]

Patio trees are normally top grafted. So a stem with no branches and shoots should be removed. Then one or two bud grafts as the top which will grow and produce fruit. This growth can go in all directions but there will be no leading branches (it will not grow straight up).

[nickdub]

You can get columnar cherry trees - whether yours is one of these I don't know, but if it is there is quite a bit of info on the Web about how to manage them.

[magicmarigold]

Hmm I tried to post a photo but it wouldn't upload, it's this one
https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/ch...-tree/t10442TM

There's a graft right at the bottom of it with the main branch (?) Being upright although I'd imagine it's been forced to grow so straight. The new growth from.the top is going diagonally out from the highest bud.

[Guest]

It is a column like Nick said. You can also just think of it as a cordon but upright and in a pot. Side branches should be trimmed on dry days to keep it compact.

[magicmarigold]

Thank you! In the future I'll look up plants before I buy them so I know what to expect (complete lie by the way, I will impulse buy forever)

[Kirk]

I have a columnar apple that I have had for several years. I basically leave it to do whatever it wants.

It has reached about 12 to 15 feet high and is a central stem with branches of about 8 to 12 inches growing off it. These branches are at an angle of about 45 degrees. Actually about the best cropping apple I have. Sort of desert/cooker type.

Not sure how a cherry would function and the description of the tip growing at an angle is a bit disconcerting. Are you sure it is actually the tip? If it is the tip then maybe it will grow a bit then turn upwards and become the main leader. You would have a slight kink in the main stem at that position.

Check where a cherry flowers and bears fruit, it you prune out the bud part then no buds means no fruit. As said I just left mine to get on with it, and it i too tall now to do anything realistic to it, and anyway it seems happy. Just I cannot get at the top friuit.

There is another similar that is a minarette, they are from Ken Muir and sort of similar, but not the same.

I think that columnar's were a find in South America some years ago and they managed to cross some of our fruit with it or get the charistic whatever into our fruit and get these tall upright stick things. Have to admit they are quite convenient things. Guess the main stem would made a good walking stick, or a wizards staff.

[nickdub]

If you want to pick the fruit at the top, then its possible to make a long-handled picker with a pole and a cut-off plastic bottle - bit fiddly to use, but OK if its only a few apples.