If you only have room for one cherry tree, choosing a self-pollinating variety is the difference between a crop and a pretty tree with no fruit. The good news is that every common tart cherry and a growing list of sweet cherries can fruit on their own.

Table of Contents

The short answer: tart (sour) cherries are self-fruitful, so one tree is enough; Penn State Extension and WSU both name ‘Montmorency’. Sweet cherries vary. WSU Tree Fruit lists ‘Index’, ‘Lapins’, ‘Skeena’, ‘Sweetheart’, ‘White Gold’, ‘Sonata’, ‘Stella’, ‘Symphony’, ‘Sunburst’ and ‘BlackGold’ as self-fruitful. Popular sweet cherries such as ‘Bing’, ‘Lambert’ and ‘Rainier’ need a pollinator that blooms at the same time.

What “self-pollinating” means for cherries

Fruit growers usually say self-fruitful or self-fertile. A self-fruitful tree can set fruit with pollen from its own flowers or from another tree of the same variety. A self-unfruitful variety needs pollen from a different, compatible variety, carried by bees, and both must bloom at the same time.

Even self-fruitful trees still need bees to move pollen around the flower. Penn State Extension says honey bees are the main pollinators and that cold, rainy or windy weather and insecticides during bloom all reduce pollination.

Tart cherries: one tree is enough

Penn State Extension says peaches, nectarines, tart cherries and most plums are self-fruitful, so you only need to plant one variety. WSU’s compatibility table marks ‘Montmorency’, the classic pie cherry, as self-fruitful.

Tart cherries are also hardier. Penn State ranks tart cherries as more winter-hardy than sweet cherries, and K-State notes that hardy sour cherry varieties are seldom injured by winter weather. In cold areas, a tart cherry is often the more reliable single tree.

Self-fruitful sweet cherries by bloom time

WSU groups sweet cherries by bloom period. Self-fruitful (SF) varieties in each group can also act as “universal” pollinators for self-unfruitful (SI) varieties that bloom at the same time.

Bloom period	Self-fruitful (fruit alone)	Need a pollinator
Early	‘Lapins’, ‘Skeena’	‘Somerset’
Early to early-mid	‘Sweetheart’, ‘White Gold’	‘Kristin’, ‘Chelan’, ‘Black Republican’
Mid to late-mid	‘Sonata’, ‘Stella’, ‘Symphony’, ‘Sunburst’	‘Bing’, ‘Rainier’, ‘Lambert’, ‘Royal Ann’/’Napoleon’, ‘Van’, ‘Regina’, ‘Sam’ and others
Late	‘BlackGold’	‘Gold’, ‘Hudson’

Source: WSU Tree Fruit, sweet cherry pollination. WSU also lists ‘Index’ as self-fruitful.

A note on ‘Stella’

‘Stella’ is a widely sold self-fruitful sweet cherry. WSU lists it as a compatible pollinizer for ‘Bing’, ‘Lambert’, ‘Rainier’, ‘Royal Ann’ and ‘Van’, but adds a warning: Stella has been found not to work as a pollinator for Bing in some areas.

Pairing sweet cherries that are not self-fruitful

If you have your heart set on ‘Bing’, ‘Rainier’ or another self-unfruitful variety, you need a second tree. Two rules matter:

The bloom times must overlap. Use the table above and pick a partner from the same bloom group.
The varieties must be compatible. Some sweet cherries cannot pollinate each other. WSU and Penn State both say ‘Bing’, ‘Lambert’ and ‘Napoleon’ (also sold as ‘Royal Ann’) do not pollinate one another.

Pollinators WSU lists for ‘Bing’ include ‘Sam’, ‘Van’, ‘Rainier’, ‘Stella’ and ‘Montmorency’. Penn State suggests ‘Black Tartarian’, ‘Republican’, ‘Van’ or ‘Windsor’ as pollinators for ‘Bing’, ‘Lambert’ and ‘Napoleon’.

Can a tart cherry pollinate a sweet cherry?

In principle, yes. WSU’s table lists ‘Montmorency’ as a compatible pollinizer for several sweet cherries. But Penn State notes that tart and sweet cherries usually do not bloom at the same time, so a tart cherry is not a dependable partner. A self-fruitful sweet cherry from the right bloom group is a better choice.

A self-fruitful tree can still help its neighbors

Planting a self-fruitful sweet cherry next to a self-unfruitful one gives you two benefits. You get a crop from the self-fruitful tree, and it pollinates the other one if they bloom together. For example, ‘Sweetheart’ (early to early-mid bloom) could partner an early-mid variety. ‘Stella’ or ‘Sonata’ could partner a mid-season variety, with the Bing caution above.

How far apart should two cherry trees be?

Close enough for bees to visit both, and far enough apart that the trees do not crowd each other. The University of Maine Extension suggests about 6 to 8 feet for dwarf cherries and adds 5 feet beyond normal spacing for non-dwarf sweet cherries, which grow larger than most fruit trees. Within a normal backyard, bees easily travel between trees.

When a self-fruitful cherry still does not fruit

Self-fruitfulness solves only the pollination problem. A young tree, a late frost on the blossoms, too much nitrogen or poor bee weather can still leave you with no cherries. K-State says sour cherries take 3 to 5 years and sweet cherries 4 to 7 years to start bearing. For a full troubleshooting list, see why a cherry tree isn’t producing fruit, and for keeping the tree productive, our guide on when to prune sweet cherry trees.

Sources

Pollination: Sweet Cherry, WSU Tree Fruit, Washington State University
Home Orchards: Why Is There No Fruit on My Tree?, Penn State Extension
Why Fruit Trees Fail to Bear Fruit, K-State Research and Extension
Spacing Trees in an Orchard, University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Top photo: jnakert, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Self-Pollinating Cherry Trees: Which Varieties Fruit on Their Own