If you are not sure how many hours of chilling you get, call your local county extension office. California if filled with micro climate areas and by you address they will answer your question. Al

I did find that info online - http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/chillcalc/index1.htm

There is a station a few miles from where I live and they list the chill hours as 89 - well short of what's listed on the plant.

Yes, I also understand that chill hours is not an exact science and may not apply - plus I'm ot sure how much the micro-climate in my yard varies from the station data. Plus I know that in winter we get many nights where the temp is in the mid 40s (say 46 - 47). SInce it is not 45 or below maybe it is not counted as chill hours but since it is so close I guess it could qualify.

I suppose I could try it out and see what happens.

Phooey. I just typed a long explanatory piece about trying to grow a Bing, or other fruit tree that requires lots of chill, in a low-chill region such as you live in. But it's gone.

So to summarize:
The tree will grow, somewhat.
It will bloom, somewhat.
It may even set fruit, somewhat.
But the fruit won't mature.
Not ever.
Then after a number of wishful waiting for a "real" crop, the tree will begin to decline.

Bottom line: To save yourself a lot of grief, forget trying to grow a Bing in your region.

The best info you can get about growing fruit trees in your region will be from your county's Extension Service office. Anyone can locate their county's office with this clickable map from the USDA:
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/

Jean, who gardened for 30-some years in Long Beach, CA

Here is a link that might be useful: USDA map to locate any county Unversity Extension Service office

Blue can;

Bing is a loser for Soutern California; not enough cold. However, all is not lost; there are two excellent low-chill cherry varieties that excel here and the fruit quality is equal or superior to Bing: Royal Lee and Minnie Royal. They pollinate each other and bear like crazy, being the first cherries that are productive in Southern California.

Big box centers like Home Depot have buyers that purchase for large areas of the country, and absolutely cannot be trusted to carry plants that are adapted to each store's climate. You will find Minnie Royal and Royal Lee bare root at your retail nursery, as they are wholesaled by Dave Wilson Nurseries. They take a few years to really start bearing, but once they do they are very reliable.

Applenut

Okay thanks everyone - I guess I will forget about the Bing. I only have enough space for 2 more fruit (dwarf) trees or fruit trees that are smaller in size so I guess I will forget the Cherry and look at Citrus and something else that would grow well in our region.

As final confirmation I spoke with a friend who gardens a lot and has many fruit trees and vegetable plants. He also known many others who garden and tracked down someone who had planted one of these from HD. Apparently the tree grows well but puts out little to no fruit. So he has concluded at this late stage that it is to do with the chill hours.

By the way, you can ignore the chilling hours for apples, as they all fruit just fine here. Wish I could say the same for stonefruit.

Bought a Bing from Costco couple years ago and put in a 15 gallon container. Its an ultra dwarf about three feet tall and had a good bud set this spring, but only one out of three pollinated. Have a little more than a dozen fruit just now turning. I think it may have helped to move it in the shade for the winter, then full sun in Feb. However, I've been eating fruit from Royal lee and mini lee cherry trees for a couple weeks now, and taste is very good. Not bad for Orange County.

Backyardman,

Are you that guy from Huntington Beach that has like 40 fruit & nut trees in your backyard? Along with berries?
I went to your open house years ago & your Cherry trees were maybe 2-3 years old. Any pics of the size of the trees now?

Blue_can
I thought it was kind of funny that you went from wanting to plant a bing to citrus. Don't citrus love heat? I had an Orange tree for years & it never got really sweet so I took it out, too cold. My lemon does fine though.

trick187,
I'm in San Juan Capistrano, your thinking of someone else in HB, I don't have any citrus. The bing cherries are ripening but not ready yet, hopefully they will. Only got a dozen or so that pollinated, don't know what happened there?

Arrrgh! sorry for my outburst but this is why you shouldn't buy plants from box stores like HD. They're ok for lumber, pipes, screws, stuff like that, but not for plants. Do you know they don't even own the plants that are in the store? They have a wholesale purchase program where they do not pay a wholesaler for a plant until it's rung up through the register? Up until that point it's the vendor's plant. The vendor is responsible for it's well being. And for watering it. If the vendor doesn't have enough staff to get out there and water the plants, then they die, and get written off.
Go to an independent nursery. They have to buy the plants, take care of them, and guarantee them. And most people who work there like plants and often know a lot more about them. Yes, they are somewhat more expensive, but what about the cost of watering and fertilizing that Bing cherry that will never give you good fruit? Not to mention the one thing we never get more of; TIME. the time wasted on bad plants!

Support your local independent nurseries! If you don't you'll only end up with box store plants that don't do well in your area. Just sayin'.

Hi BarbJP,
I bought the tree at Costco not Home Depot, and the point I was trying to make was that the Bing tree fruited here in Orange County. There was three to four times as many buds as pollinized fruit, but I think that's a different issue. I also have a northern highbush blueberry bush called Chandler that is suppose to only do well in the north, but its on its third year and is loaded with berries, right here in Orange County. Go figure?

I live in southern California and get almost no chill where I am. (I think we only had 3 nights in winter where the temperature dropped below 45 °F )

8 months ago I planted a Bing cherry tree, then 2 months later got a Royal Lee and Minnie Royal. Surprisingly the Bing has really leafed out and now seems to be growing much more vigorously than the other two. It took a while though, the Bing did not really begin leafing out until early May. I should also mention that I consistently applied a 200ppm solution of gibberellic acid to the leaf buds every 2 days to try to help the cherry trees come out of dormancy, and that the Bing had not fully entered all the way into dormancy when I bought it in November. There were still 3-4 big leaves at the very top, but these later fell off in April/May at the same time as the new growth).

I will also mention that the first little leaflets the Bing sent out were very feeble, and most did not survive, and these first leaves turned brown and withered. But the tree sent out new leaves a few weeks later that have done well and are now big and healthy.

I am not saying it is easy to grow the Bing variety in this climate, but my experience has shown it is possible. Getting fruit from it is another matter, I will have to wait a few years to find out how that goes.

Barb,

The big box stores are about as unacceptable for "lumber, pipes, screws, stuff like that" as they are for plants. Some stuff worth buying but mostly garbage.

You know they are unacceptable for most plants because you know plants. If you know hardware then your opinion would be similar. There are a few exceptions and some of them are getting better on some hardware but certainly NOT lumber. The actual providers of hardware & building materials are becoming more specialized and are generally patronized by professionals.

From what I've read (in two different places), cherries begin producing fruit much sooner on dwarfing rootstock, especially in warmer climates. I have read several people say that, for something like Bing on non-dwarfing rootstock, in a warm climate it could take 4 to 10 years before any fruit appears.

It's probably not the best idea to try to grow a Bing in a warm climate (there are other cherry varieties that would be much better suited). But for those of you who are growing a Bing cherry tree, you will probably need to have some patience.

The reason backyardman was able to have success (see the "Cherry Tree Fruiting in CA?" thread) was probably because his little potted Bing was on ultra-dwarf rootstock.

Will you ever be able to get the tree to produce any fruit? Probably yes. Will the tree ever produce huge amounts of fruit? Probably not. There may be many years when you do not get any fruit. It might only produce a single handful of fruit. That's what happens when a cherry does not get adequate chill hours.

There are not many people in the big coastal California cities growing cherry trees (I have never seen anyone with a cherry tree in their yard), there is probably good reason for this. All those cherry trees that were popular in the Northeast and Midwest did not get enough chill hours here. It has only been in recent years that lower chill cherry varieties have been introduced, but it has not caught on yet. People are slow to change, most people in Southern California are not familiar with growing cherries, and only see expensive bags of cherries appear in the supermarket for a short period of time in May, then they forget about this fruit.

Bing cherry with a couple flowers at its tips:

This is only the second year it has been in the ground.

Have a strange theory, I think what really helped is that the lower part of the tree gets some partial shade in Winter, with the sun being at a lower angle. The shade allows the lower part of the tree to accumulate more effective chill hours (because "chill" actually has more to do with daytime highs than nighttime lows). This means the lower part of the tree can start leafing out earlier, and this growth sends hormones out through the tree to help the upper branches start coming out of dormancy.

I only count about 10 blossoms on it though, which is not surprising since Bing does have a very high chill requirement. My Rainier is loaded with blossoms though. This Winter was unusually cold for this area (zone 10, south of Los Angeles) so that probably helped. Spring time here tends to begin in late February.

I do not see any bees coming out this early in the year, so if you're in this area you might have to do the cross pollination by hand if you want any cherries. I suspect the timing of the bees coming out has to do with what type of flowering plants are prevelent in this region, which is different than the rest of the country.

Update: the Bing cherry is now full of big-sized leaves and it looks like it's doing very well. Better on the bottom half of the tree, but not too bad on the top. I think being planted in a little nook sheltered by the bushes is helping, it keeps air from blowing past and drying out the leaves, combined with a little bit of shade it probably helps raise humidity in that spot a little bit. Strangely, the Bing seems to be doing much better than the Royal Lee/Royal Minnie cherry trees that are planted out in the open.

It still remains to be seen whether or how productive this Bing will be at producing fruit.

My parents grew a bing cherry tree for 15 years, here in SanDiego Co, SanMarcos, CA. It grew just fine but never produced a single fruit in all those years. The apricot tree did just fine and broke branches due to the wieght of the fruit. I don't know what apricot is was though. Lisa

I grafted a branch of Royal Minnie onto the very top of the tree (end of December) and the graft took. There are now blossoms budding out of the top. Royal Minnie appears to be a very prolific variety, and that Bing tree appears to be a vigorous grower for whatever reason. I'm hoping having a graft of Royal Minnie in the tree might help induce the rest of the tree to come out of dormancy earlier and fruit.

The Royal Minnie top is bursting forth full of blossoms right now, it looks like it can hardly contain itself.

There are now several blossoms on the Bing.

All the blossoms on the Royal Minnie section which was grafted on top have already dried out, and there are several little fruits beginning to form (not shown in detail here because they are not coming from the Bing).

Here's a picture of the tree last year, before I made the graft (but I had treated the buds with gibberellic acid in an attempt to try to help it come out of dormancy, not sure if that helped)

The leaves didn't look like this at first, but developed more fully later in the growing season.

Here's a picture of the graft union now:

latest picture of the Minnie Royal grafted onto Bing.

The graft line is right below the four main branch offshoots towards the top. You can see the difference in growth rates.

(Southern California, solid zone 10 climate zone, late October 2019 )

Also have a Royal Lee planted nearby that is doing fairly good, though much more growth and branches coming out from towards the bottom than the top. (no, it's not coming from the rootstock)

So the trees can grow okay, but we still haven't had any real fruit crop yet. Maybe the trees just need another year or two to get a little more mature before that happens (in this warm climate).

I have a friend who lives in southern OC, and grows several varieties of fruit. The cherry trees seem to be a problem. Even the low chill varieties like Minnie Royal don't produce. Other fruit trees do fine. Don't try growing pears in OC, either, unless you choose Asian pears. Dave Wilson nursery online is a good source of information. They are wholesale growers and provide a lot of the trees you see in nurseries.

I actually was surprised, Passe Crassane pear seems to be able to produce fruits in OC, but it is a pretty rare difficult to find variety.

(I suspect the fact it is parthenocarpic may have something to do with it)