Christine:

Mailorder another sweet. Without it, your Black Tartarian will not fruit. I would suggest something like Lapins or Black Gold. Stark Bros. has one called Royalton that looks ok, although heaven only knows what it really is.

Don't worry about the difference in age of the trees. If you plant a vigorous young bareroot tree, you will find it will catch up and pass the larger tree fairly quickly.

Sweet cherries are wonderful, but they are pretty hard to grow in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S. of A. When your husband returns safe and sound in 77 weeks, I think he will be happy with the two sweet cherries you planted.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I have a six year old Lapins. It survived two winters with a low temperature of -25 F., and a low wind chill of -55 F. These temperatures killed a Bing cherry and an Elberta peach. The Lapins fruit is delicious, medium sized and firm, so it has good shelf life. It forms blossoms around the junction of one and two year old wood, in large clusters. It is self fruitful and pollinates all other sweet cherries. It is a vigorous grower. Miller's Nursery in New York still has some. The tree may have problems, but I haven't found one yet.

Well, here is one. The cherries develop in tight clusters and inside those clusters rot develops. It is hard to get the spray inside those clusters. Because of that Lapins is no longer planted commercially to any extent, at least to my knowledge. The Lapins is a good pollenizer if it blooms at the same time as your other variety, but Lapins is known as a somewhat early blooming variety. It can be more susceptible to frost than the late blooming varieties that are self fertile: Sonata, Sandra Rose or Benton. Overall, IMHO these are better varieties along with the Sweetheart, Skeena, Attika and Regina.
But those cherries may have other problems that will show in your location. Lapins is one of the best tasting cherries and if you have found it works well for you in your area, then you are really ahead of the game.

18 years ago I planted a Black Tartarian with Montmorency and Norh Star to pollenate. I have yet to produce a sweet cherry. This winter I planted a Bing and Stalla hoping this will do the trick.

I planted a black tartarian cherry tree in spring 2007. I then planted a bing cherry tree near it last spring 2009. this is the first year that my tartarian cherry tree bloomed flowers. does that mean that it has been cross pollinated and will produce cherries this year.