I planted two kwanzan and one yoshino cherry blossom tree seedlings. The yoshino put out a few blooms in late October, but it has been two months and it has not leafed yet. Both the kwanzans have remained dormant, despite being planted 4 months ago. They all get plenty of sun, and located in warm dry climate, with very mild winters (in the last 10 years there has only been hail twice, never any snow).

I also just planted a bing cherry. Now I know it is not going to get any chilling hours in this climate. It never gets freezing here. In the winter if it reaches 50 F, that is considered very cold here.

My first question is whether my cherry blossom seedlings are ever going to break dormancy and grow. Could they have gotten too stressed and will never send out leaves, and will just slowly die? or is the fact that they are not going to get any chill, combined with the fact that they are just leafless seedlings right now, going to lead to their death?

My second question is how well do you think the cherry trees will be able to grow here, particular the bing. I have been doing a lot of reading, and supposedly bing does not do that well in climates were it does not get any chill, but apparently some people have been able to get bing cherries to produce fruit.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/calif/msg0320194916480.html?19

Is the lack of chill going to throw off the cherry tree's leafing and hurt it's growth? What exactly happens when a sweet cherry tree doesn't get any chill ?

My third question is whether the cherry blossom trees will be able to act as a pollinator for the bing cherry tree. I know that bing cherry trees need pollination by another variety of cherry to produce fruit. I do not see why the yoshino could not act as a pollinator. Fruit cherry trees and ornamental cherry trees are closely related.

They have made crosses between apricots and plums, and even a cross between a cherry and a plum. I have tried to do some research into this, and it seems the issue with pollination is that most species of cherries require poll-en that is not too genetically identical, a natural defense against inbreeding. (it has to do with RNA sequencing, if both strings of RNA from each par-ent match up, it will set off a trigger that will prevent development)
And another minor issue is that there are a few over-bred varieties of cherry that are unable to produce enough poll-en to be able to pollinate, though of course they can be pollinated by another cherry tree.

I have never been able to find any information about cross breeds between fruiting cherry trees and ornamental cherry trees. But I would think ornamental cherry trees could be used as a pollinator. (the characteristics of the parent plant that supplies the pollen does not affect the characteristics of fruit which forms on the other parent tree)

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

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.