When I ordered them from the catalog, they kinda lied. They were described as cherry bushes. At about 12 feet high, I think they've passed that point, and they're still growing.
They're in a spot in the yard that's in its forth incarnation, as far as use goes. It's south of the house, about halfway between the blueberries and daffodils snugged up against the house, and the tall hedge of red flowered honeysuckle on the border. First I tried a pear tree. Within a month it succumbed to fire blight. Hopeless. There were asiatic lily bulbs planted there in lots of lovely colors, but after about five years of inattention they failed to thrive. So we planted apricot trees. Those did just fine, but the apricots weren't worth the effort. They actually did OK this far north, on the 3-4 climate zone border, a nice surprise as not everything advertised to survive here actually does. But by the time the fruit ripened it was spotty and ugly. Scab. We got rid of those and let things rest a year or two.
In the meantime, we'd planted cherry trees in the front yard. We got cherries, but only so-so. In went another northern variety which is thriving. We supplemented those with nanking variety cherries in a couple places around the yard. Those low bushes thrived but gave tiny cherries which the birds collected before we could. That was fine, as we'd hoped to distract them from our cherries. Just got more birds. Eventually we got rid of those, pretty as they were, especially when blooming. Seeds scattered (i.e., got pooped) all over and we were pulling out sprouts for a couple years. The nankings got replaced by honeyberries, another story for another time.
One winter, looking through the nursery/garden catalogues for something new for the yard, I found a cherry bush advertised. I'm sure it had a special name, but who can remember all these years later? The part which caught my eye was the promise of very prolific fruit. Real cherries, not the sand cherries I'd gotten fooled by several years earlier. So I ordered a pair. They went in the holes left from digging out the apricot trees a couple years earlier.
The bushes came in little peat pots about 2" x 2", and had perhaps 3' stems with a few leaves. They definitely needed something to protect them from the lawn mower! I can't recall but I'm assuming it would have been tomato cages, since tomatoes weren't popular. Lots of ambitions, some product, little actual appetite for them - go figure, and no inclination to can. All the neighbors were growing their own, so with no way to get rid of them either, might as well quit growing those and use their cages.
I thought they'd died. They stayed so short the grass was taller. But within a couple years, Paul insisted they were still there. And alive! The cherry bushes grew. And grew. After about 5 years there were enough cherries to see a couple actually ripen before the birds took them. Seriously, a couple. Soon there were enough for Paul to reach easily enough to pick, rather than having to dig out the ladder to pick from the front yard trees. Of course he left those early cherries for the birds since they were actually easier to harvest from the front trees, ladder and all.
Time marches forward. Now the "bushes" are a height which almost matches the tallest cherry tree out front. But the part about the abundance of cherries is perfectly correct. Even without fruit they are so thick that they are opaque. Loaded down with tiny green cherries just 2 weeks ago, the weather warmed enough and it rained enough that seemingly overnight they started expanding and reddening. We could look at some pink ones in the early morning and they'd be red by lunchtime. Then gone soon after, though enough were reddening right behind them that if you hadn't watched the birds you couldn't tell the difference.
First it was the robins. Either lots of robins or very hungry robins feeding their young. I actually did see one with a scruffy fledgeling on the top of the chain link fence, trying to encourage the youngster to hop over to get its reward. The parent wound up eating that one itself and flew back to the tree for the next one. I'd moved from the window after that, but presumed success at some point.
There were cardinals, cedar waxwings which in the past had helped strip the highbush cranberries as winter ended, but always seemed to move on before any summer fruit appeared. A dark grey bird just a tad larger than a junco has visited, along with unidentified brown birds (sparrows? finches? something else?). Something with yellow, a bit of white, and lots of dark color flew past so fast I couldn't tell if the dark was brown or black. My flash impression is larger than a finch or sparrow. I finally after much struggle came up with the name of the rarest bird to visit, one I hadn't seen in years and never in town: a rose breasted grossbeak. Who knows what else comes when our attention is elsewhere? There is a never ending supply of places where the leaves rustled but successfully hid the culprits. Maybe a tail stuck out.
I never bothered to try for pictures. They would have to have been taken through triple pane windows and a screen, no surface of which has been cleaned off in recent memory. By the time I got near in person, any foraging bird would have long flown. Sitting very still outside and patiently waiting would only have produced a different feast: mosquitoes feeding on me. Which of course would have totally made sitting still impossible anyway, so why give the skeeters the pleasure?
They've been at the cherries non stop now, and still there are plenty of red cherries all over these bushes. The front yard trees are ripening their fruit, though nothing resembling the amount on the bushes. So naturally nothing resembling the amount of birds. Paul finally decided it was time to head out with a huge bowl to pick some for his annual fall jelly making project. When he returned, the bowl was overload to the limit of its ability to keep them from dropping as he walked. He sent two gallon bags of them down to the basement freezer. Neither I nor the birds can tell any difference in the ripe bounty on the bushes.
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