Bing cherry

Sun

Full sun, with at least 6-8 hours of direct sunlight daily; avoid frost pockets and exposed, windy sites.

Water

Water deeply during establishment and dry spells. Keep moisture reasonably even while fruit develops, but never leave the roots waterlogged.

Soil

Fertile, well-drained loam, ideally pH 6.0-7.0. Avoid heavy, poorly drained ground.

Height

Standard rootstock: 25-35 ft (7.6-10.7 m); dwarfing rootstock with pruning: about 8-15 ft (2.4-4.6 m).

Spread

Standard rootstock: 20-30 ft (6.1-9.1 m); dwarfing rootstock with pruning: about 8-15 ft (2.4-4.6 m).

Flowers

White flowers in clusters in mid-spring, before or as the leaves emerge.

Foliage

Oval, pointed, toothed green leaves, often turning yellow to orange in autumn.

Growth

Moderate; rootstock, soil and pruning strongly affect growth.

Care needed

High

• Pollinators
• Wildlife
• Low allergen
• Edible

Northern hemisphere months. In Australia, shift them by six.

Difficulty

Hard

Toughness

Needs looking after

Pick your zone, country, light and whether you have pets.

1. Planting day

   7 ft (2 m)

2. After 1 year

   8 ft (2.4 m)

3. After 2 years

   9 ft (2.7 m)

4. After 3 years

   10 ft (3.1 m)

5. After 5 years

   12 ft (3.8 m)

About 20 years to full size.

From a typical nursery size, at an average rate for this kind of plant. A rule of thumb, not a forecast.

Cats and dogs

Toxic

Native to

the UK

Invasive in

the US and Australia

Growth rate

Moderate

• Plant a compatible sweet cherry with overlapping bloom, such as Van, Black Tartarian or Lapins, within easy bee-flying distance; another Bing will not provide effective cross-pollination.
• Check local suitability before buying: Bing commonly needs roughly 700-900 winter chill hours, and warm winters can cause poor flowering.
• Water the root zone deeply during dry weather, especially for young trees and while fruit is swelling.
• Apply 2-3 in (5-8 cm) of organic mulch, keeping it clear of the trunk; feed modestly in spring only if growth or soil tests indicate a need.
• Stake according to the rootstock supplier's advice; some dwarfing rootstocks need permanent support.
• Protect ripening fruit with taut, wildlife-safe netting on a frame, checked daily for trapped animals.

Pruning. Train young trees to an open, well-spaced framework, then prune lightly after harvest in dry summer weather to remove dead, crossing and crowded branches. Avoid routine winter pruning, especially in cool, wet climates, to reduce silver leaf and bacterial canker risk.

Pick cherries when they are fully dark red to almost black, firm but juicy, and sweet when tasted; they do not become sweeter after picking. Harvest in early to midsummer, depending on climate, lifting or snipping clusters carefully with their stalks attached and leaving the fruiting spurs intact.

Late autumn

Collect fallen fruit and remove shrivelled cherries from the tree to reduce disease carryover.

Winter

Plant dormant bare-root trees when the soil is workable and not waterlogged; check stakes and ties.

Early spring

Refresh mulch and assess whether a modest feed is needed.

Mid-spring

Check that the pollination partner flowers at the same time; avoid insecticide use during bloom.

Early summer

Install bird protection before fruit colours and maintain even soil moisture.

Summer

Harvest fully ripe cherries, then prune lightly during a dry spell.

• Use as a productive focal tree in a sunny lawn or kitchen garden, allowing space for its mature canopy.
• Plant with compatible sweet cherries in a small orchard for reliable cross-pollination.
• Train a tree on a suitable rootstock as a fan against a sunny wall or sturdy framework, making pruning and fruit protection easier.
• Underplant beyond the mulched trunk area with low flowering herbs to bring pollinators into an edible garden.

Garden styles it suits: Backyard orchard, Edible landscape, Homestead, Potager (kitchen garden), Cottage garden and Traditional.

Plant it with: Van cherry, Lapins cherry, Chives, Thyme and Sweet alyssum.

Wildlife: Spring flowers provide pollen and nectar for bees. Birds readily eat the cherries, and foliage supports some moth and butterfly larvae; protect the crop with an enclosure that cannot entangle wildlife.

• Poor fruit set: provide a compatible, overlapping-bloom sweet cherry; also check for spring frost damage, insufficient winter chill and poor bee activity.
• Fruit splitting and brown rot: keep watering consistent, remove infected or mummified fruit, improve airflow and harvest ripe fruit promptly; a ventilated rain cover can reduce splitting.
• Bird damage and fruit-fly larvae: use a well-sealed, wildlife-safe exclusion enclosure before fruit becomes vulnerable, and remove fallen fruit promptly; seek local advice where cherry fruit flies or spotted wing drosophila occur.
• Bacterial canker or silver leaf: prune only in dry summer weather, remove affected wood back to healthy growth and disinfect tools between affected branches.

Leaves, stems and the seeds inside the stones contain cyanogenic compounds and can seriously poison people, cats, dogs and horses if chewed or eaten in sufficient amounts; wilted foliage is especially hazardous to livestock. Ripe fruit flesh is edible, but remove stones, which also present choking and intestinal-obstruction risks.

Where it spreads. The species Prunus avium can escape cultivation and spread into woodland, including parts of the Pacific Northwest of the United States and southern Australia, notably Victoria and Tasmania. Bing itself is not generally considered an aggressive garden cultivar; remove unwanted seedlings and rootstock suckers near natural vegetation.

• Other dark sweet cherries (Prunus avium cultivars)

  Several cultivars have nearly identical dark, heart-shaped fruit. Fruit appearance alone cannot reliably identify Bing; use a trustworthy nursery label or planting record.

• Sour cherry (Prunus cerasus)

  Usually a smaller, often suckering tree with smaller leaves and distinctly tart fruit; Bing produces large, sweet cherries.

• Black cherry (Prunus serotina)

  Bears many small fruits along elongated flower and fruit clusters, rather than Bing's larger cherries in short-stalked clusters.

Bing was named for Ah Bing, the Chinese foreman at the Lewelling nursery in Oregon where the cultivar originated in the nineteenth century.

Propagation. Propagate by budding or grafting onto a suitable cherry rootstock. Seedlings do not come true to Bing, and shoots arising below the graft belong to the rootstock.

Accepted botanical name

Prunus avium

In the US and Canada

Introduced in Canada and the lower 48 states.

Native range

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corse, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Denmark and France.

Measured

Soil pH 5.5 to 6.5. Average height 1220 cm.

Sources: GBIF (CC BY 4.0), USDA PLANTS and Trefle (CC BY 4.0). The care and design notes are LandscapeGPT's own.