Cherry (Prunus) Sweetheart® Patio Gisela 5®

Sweetheart extends your cherry harvest into late August, well after most varieties have finished, and this compact patio tree lets you enjoy it in the smallest of spaces. Bred at the Summerland research station in Canada, it holds the RHS Award of Garden Merit and is self-fertile, so one tree will crop on its own. Its large, glossy, dark red cherries are firm and sweet with a refreshing touch of tang, and they ripen gradually over about two weeks, giving you fresh fruit to pick for longer. The late white blossom helps it avoid spring frosts and is popular with bees. Sweetheart is also an excellent pollinator for other cherries, including self-sterile varieties such as Penny.

Grown on dwarfing Gisela 5 rootstock, this tree stays compact at around 2–2.5m and starts fruiting young, which makes it ideal for a large container on a patio, balcony or courtyard, as well as for small gardens and fruit cages. Its size also makes picking and netting against birds easy. Sweetheart is an exceptionally heavy cropper, and on this rootstock it can set more fruit than it can ripen well. Thinning crowded clusters in early summer will give you larger, better-flavoured cherries. In a pot, use a loam-based compost such as John Innes No. 3 in a container of at least 50cm, feed in spring, and water regularly and evenly through the growing season. Choose a sunny, sheltered spot away from frost pockets, and prune in summer after harvest rather than in winter, to reduce the risk of silver leaf and bacterial canker. Fully hardy (RHS H6). The fruit is delicious, but the stones and leaves shouldn't be eaten, so keep those out of reach of children and pets.

Each tree is hand-selected before dispatch.

Available from Pengelly Garden Centre.