Cherry - Prunus Avium (Sweet) / Prunus Cerasus (Sour)
New Zealand cherry varieties
Cherry trees are premium fruit tree varieties that thrive in New Zealand's cooler regions, requiring cold winters and hot, dry summers. These fruit trees are best suited to Hawke's Bay, parts of Waikato, Wairarapa, Nelson, Blenheim, Canterbury and Central Otago. For warmer New Zealand areas with fewer winter frosts, the low-chill cherry variety 'Lapins' is the optimal choice for your edible garden.
Most cherry varieties grown in New Zealand are grafted onto 'Colt' rootstock, which performs excellently in difficult soils and provides vigorous, hardy growth for home orchards. For gardeners wanting more compact fruit trees (up to 3m height), cherry trees with an 'Edabriz' interstem between the rootstock and chosen variety offer an ideal dwarf solution for smaller edible gardens.
A quintessential Christmas treat, sweet cherry varieties have a concentrated harvest season between December and January, making them special seasonal fruit trees for New Zealand home orchards. Most sweet cherry varieties require cross-pollination with another variety, unlike their sour cherry cousins. However, self-fertile cherry varieties like 'Stella' and 'Lapins' can produce fruit without pollinators. Double-grafted cherry trees provide an excellent space-saving solution, featuring two cross-pollinating varieties on one tree that typically ripen at different times, extending your harvest season over several weeks.
Beyond their delicious fruit, cherry varieties offer potential health benefits - research suggests cherries may help lower gout attack risks and possess natural sleeping aid properties.
Growing cherry trees successfully requires very well-drained, fertile soil and at least eight hours of daily sunlight. When planning your edible garden layout, avoid planting cherry trees in areas that remain shaded for most of the day. These fruit tree varieties can be vulnerable to late frosts during blossom time and to rain or hail as fruit reaches maturity, which can cause fruit splitting.
Cherry trees can be challenging fruit trees for New Zealand growers, being susceptible to diseases including silver leaf, bacterial blast, brown rot, and root rot, plus pests such as black aphids. These disease challenges are inherent to their preferred climate conditions but become more difficult in warmer, high-humidity environments. The primary challenge for cherry varieties in home orchards is protecting fruit from birds and possums - successful cherry growing typically requires constructing enclosures or netting systems to preserve your harvest.
Use our fruit tree selector to determine if cherry varieties are suitable for your specific New Zealand region and edible garden conditions.