Pin Cherry

Size, growth and what to expect

It is fast-growing, and our growth estimator gives it about two and three quarter feet a year while young. It makes a slender tree of 15 to 40 feet with a narrow, round-topped crown. It is short-lived, dying off at 20 to 40 years.

Flat clusters of white flowers open with the leaves from April into June. The cherries ripen from July to September, bright red, a quarter inch across and sour. At least 25 kinds of small birds eat them, along with ruffed grouse, black bears and raccoons.

It grows from Newfoundland and Labrador west to British Columbia, south in the Rockies to Colorado and along the Appalachians to northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee. In the southern mountains it is most common above 3,000 feet. Its seed can lie dormant in the forest floor for 50 years or more, until a fire or cutting opens the canopy.

How to grow Pin Cherry

Pin cherry needs full sun, since it is very intolerant of shade. It wants a well-drained soil, sandy or rocky and on the acid side, and it avoids wet ground. It prefers cool summers and does poorly in hot, humid climates, so choose another tree for a Piedmont or coastal yard. Plant it 15 feet from a wall and at least 15 feet from overhead wires, and set trees 15 feet apart.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Sow the cleaned pits in fall, half an inch deep under hardware cloth. For spring, keep them damp and warm for two months, then chill them in the refrigerator for three months. Even sound seed often germinates poorly, so sow plenty.

Water weekly through the first summer, then only in a long drought. Deer browse the shoots, and rabbits and hares eat the bark in winter, so guard each sapling with wire for its first two or three years. It suckers after cutting and can form a thicket, so cut stray shoots at the ground if you want a single stem. Its branches break in ice storms.

A single tree sets fruit without a partner. Trees can bear from their second year. Cherry leaf spot is its most common leaf disease and black knot its most widespread one, and tent and uglynest caterpillars feed on the leaves. The leaves can poison livestock, though less than those of most cherries.