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This post was edited by Socal2warm on Mon, Dec 1, 14 at 23:00

I really cannot answer most of you questions. But can give a little info. Some sweet cherries cannot pollinate other sweet cherries. You have to have compatible cultivars. I don't really know why? For example a bing will not pollinate an Emperor Francis and vice versa.
Zaiger spent years and did tens of thousands of crosses before any took. Most research on the subject is for commercial considerations so doubtful you will find any info on ornamental-fruit compatibility. it could be possible, let us know!
It's hard to say if your seedlings will grow? My experience is that they do grow shortly after planting. But I don't know when you got them? If recent they might break dormancy in the spring. Being chilled from where they grew, if bare root. So went dormant for the winter. They may break early as you say it's warm wherever you are??

As far as them even growing, I have no idea? Probably if you get some chilling. Not sure though? Guess you'll find out!

Looking at a pollination compatibility chart for fruiting cherries, it seems any cherry variety can pollinate a different cherry variety. The only exception is that Royal Ann, Bing, and Lambert are apparently too genetically identical to eachother so are not compatible with eachother. Stella and Lapins are each capable of pollinating themselves, but have better yields when pollinated by a different variety.

I suppose this would be the plant analogy of not wanting to marry your cousin, but at the same time not being able to have offspring with a chimpanzee.

This post was edited by Socal2warm on Tue, Dec 2, 14 at 15:38

Ever hear the song "I'm my own Grandpa" Pretty funny.
You know chances are it is compatible. Keep us updated.
I'm growing 2 sweet cherries, both self fruitful, and 2 tart cherry trees. I have lost 5 cherry trees. And we are the tart cherry capital. They are very difficult plants to grow. Even in ideal areas. I also have a Spice Zee Nectaplum, and a 4 and 1 pluot tree. And a bunch of peach trees. well a few anyway.

I just found out that an ornamental Bradford pear tree can be used as the pollinator for fruiting Asian pears. So often times when someone is buying an Asian pear tree they are told they will not need to buy a separate pollinator because there are likely Bradford pears in the neighborhood.

Also, even if ornamental cherry species are able to pollinate fruiting species, I believe the two most common cultivars of ornamental cherry, Kanzan and Yoshino, are virtually sterile or make for very poor pollinators because they produce so little pollen and are much less attractive to pollinating insects, a result of over-hybridization.

I was listening to a documentary where an elderly Japanese cherry tree expert lamented that all the new cherry blossom trees being planted were all the same. Because they have to be clonally propagated by transplant, causing them to all be genetically identical, it results in a loss of diversity. Unlike with other varieties of cherry blossoms, a forest of Yoshino cherry trees does not attract bees or birds. Very unnatural.

I have found sources stating that double-petal cherry blossom varieties such as Kanzan are sterile, something to do with chromosome number from hybridization. Yoshino cherry trees do produce tiny drupes that the birds eat, so are probably not completely sterile.

quote by Socal2warm:

" They have made crosses between apricots and plums, and even a cross between a cherry and a plum. "

It should also be pointed out that these "cherries" used to make this hybrid fruit were actually a Prunus besseyi, which is not a true cherry species. Also to make things more confusing, many of these so-called "plum" species are actually more closely related to apricots, which would explain the compatibility. While cherry, apricot, or plum trees can be grafted on to each other, I am not aware of any case where they have actually been crossbred, at least not with true species of cherries or plums.

I do not believe ordinary plum species, apricots, or cherries can pollinate each other. Sour cherries can pollinate sweet cherries though.

Also Asian pears cannot pollinate regular pears.

I found it!

Apparently sweet cherries can be pollinated by and crossbreed with ornamental cherries. Here is the reference:

"Since there is no low-chill germplasm avaialable for sweet
cherry, the only other alternative is to go to another species of cherry for
this trait. Several species have been used in crosses with sweet cherry with
occasional success with Prunus pleiocerasus and Prunus campanulata. In 1957,
W.E. Lammerts made a cross between P. pleiocerasus and P. avium 'Black
Tartarian'. This hybrid is very low-chilling (<200 CU ) but not self
fruitful. The hybrid was repeatedly crossed with sweet cherry and P. campanulata.
In the mid 1970s, the Florida program developed several seedlings by using
mixed pollen (P. campanulata and 'Stella'). All the hybrids had pink blooms and
thus were probably hybrids with P. campanulata. Several of these seedlings were
fruitful. Although the size is still small, this germplasm is useful for the
development of low-chill sweet cherries."

Temperate Fruit Crops in Warm Climates, edited by Amnon Erez, p216

Prunus campanulata is the Formosan cherry, and I know it can be crossbred with Prunus serrulata ornamental cherry varieties.

"Also Asian pears cannot pollinate regular pears."

This is not correct. Asian and European pears will provide cross pollination for each other as long as bloom times coincide. But as most Asian pears bloom before European pears, it's not always common. Late blooming Asians can pollinate early blooming Europeans and vice versa.

I am assuming this means if I got a low-chill pear tree I would not need to buy a separate pollinator since there are so many ornamental Bradford pears around the neighborhood?

On the other hand, this might be how the Bradford pears began spreading out of control in the first place, once they mixed genes and became capable of pollinating each other and producing seeds that then got carried away by the birds. I live in Zone 10 though, so there is not enough chill here for pear seeds to be able to germinate on their own (though with hybrid seeds I'm not so sure). I find it unlikely a bird would be able to get to the seeds inside a full size pear fruit and then carry it away to another climate zone.

Sour cherry trees can pollinate sweet cherry trees. I'm not sure if they make the best pollinator, but they are certainly capable of doing so. If you take a cherry that resulted from a blossom that was cross-pollinated here and take out the seed, that seed can grow into a hybrid tree, which can eventually produce fruit of its own (I know that in the case of the hybrid cultivar 'Mesabi' it's even self-fertile). However, the seeds inside this fruit are sterile and cannot grow. Like breeding a horse and donkey together to create a mule, there is no third generation. The reason is a chromosomal difference, sweet cherries are diploid (2n=16) while sour cherries are tetraploid (2n=32). A hybrid between the two results in a triploid cherry, which is why it cannot further sexually reproduce.

However, flowering cherry species just happen to have the same chromosome count as Prunus Avium (i.e. sweet cherries), so that means they are capable of freely interbreeding. But it should be noted the two are still not in the same species. The question then is what does this really mean?

Even when it comes to the different wild varieties of Japanese flowering cherry, oftentimes crossbreeding them together results in a hybrid that grows less vigorously than its parents, or is not very well adapted to its environment. Sometimes this may become more evident several generations down the line (you might read up more on how Outbreeding Depression works). Cultivated varieties of flowering cherry, almost all of which resulted from hybridization over hundreds of years) are much less hardy than their original wild pure-species relatives. We can even see some level of graft incompatibility combining different varieties of cherries within the same species, the tree does not grow quite as vigorously or as big as if it were grafted onto its own rootstock.

I'm in Southern California (south of LA, only about 15 miles from the coast). Here's a picture of the Yoshino cherry I planted as a small seedling, it appears to be doing decently well now.

We had a colder winter this year than usual for this area, so I am sure that helped.

Last year I was very careful to make sure the young seedling got consistent water. It was only 2 feet long when I bought it, very small thin and frail. The two other kwanzan seedlings I planted didn't make it. (yes, I'm the OP, under a new name, just coming back to give you an update)

Yoshino is supposedly rated for about 500 chill hours, so this may have implications for those in warm climates trying to grow fruiting cherry trees.

Update, here's a picture of the little Yoshino cherry tree this year:

In this climate I make sure to give it extra care so the soil doesn't dry out at its base. The tree seems to like March and April the best, but in the middle of summer the leaves start drying out and getting burnt.

It's interesting trying to grow temperate plants like cherries in climate zone 10. There's not a lot of information out there about this. Lack of adequate chill period and hot (almost scorching) dry summers create their own unique challenges.