Hi Sylvana, welcome to the FN forum.

I have Evans Cherry but too young yet to produce fruit. If you do a search on this forum, there's a couple of threads of the cultivars you mention.

Holes Greenhouse in St. Albert is a candy store for gardeners. Expensive, but healthy and guaranteed.

Hi, I'm in Edmonton too, have a big backyard and have lived in this house for 17 years, and have always been interested in fruit growing. I've got two plum trees, a pear, three apples (plus I've grafted on other varieties), grape vines, a row of saskatoons (3 varieties), raspberries (3 kinds). I'm not growing cherries right now, but have grown the varieties, Comet, Evans, and Nanking.

I've had good luck with everything except cherries. My Nanking survived for 10 years or more, but never produced heavily (though enough to eat), until our neighbour's Nanking got infected with something and died, and it spread to our bush, so I took the plant out and added more saskatoons. My Comet never amounted to much, and died after several years. The Evans cherry was most successful, produced heavily for a few years, then had serious dieback so I removed it. I think cherries like it fairly dry, and mine was in the vegetable garden so received quite a bit of water.

If I were to recommend fruit bushes/trees for someone with a small space like you say is the case for you, I would probably recommend either Smoky saskatoon or a dwarf apple tree, perhaps one of the varieties with several apple varieties grafted onto a single tree, as the best choices. Saskatoons are reliable in this climate, and grow 8-10 feet high. Same height for a dwarf apple, and of all the fruit trees in this climate, apples are king. Your requirements sound like a full-sized apple would be too big, but if you do have moderate room, the variety September Ruby I would highly recommend. Mine is 17 years old and about 12 feet high, fruits very heavily one year and lightly the next, tastes somewhat like the commercial variety Delicious, and keeps in the fridge for several months (unlike many apples here, which go soft very quickly).

I would avoid the Kiwi -- it's more ornamental than fruitful, and you need both male and female plants for fruit, so will need to grow multiple vines to be sure you will get any fruit at all.

Many (all?) cherries are self-fruitful, so you only need one tree/bush for fruit. Apples require cross-pollination, but that can be from trees hundreds of metres away, so in the city you only need one variety and cross-pollination is still guaranteed. Wonderful plums can be grown here, but they need cross-pollination. My trees only produced a few plums until I grafted on a pollinator (and that pollinator has to have the same bloom-time as your main tree), now I get hundreds of plums each year... more needy than what you are looking for I think.

As for sources... well, Sprout Farms used to be the best place around for hardy Alberta fruit bushes and trees, but last year they didn't operate their nursery. Most standard or popular fruit trees can be found at any of the major nurseries around the city... Holes, Greenland, Salsbury, etc. Though I haven't yet checked these guys out in person, DNA gardens, near Red Deer, specializes in Alberta fruit trees, bushes, plants, etc. I'm going to check out their selection of haksap berries this spring, as they seem to carry the latest cultivars which are major improvements on the older varieties. Anyhow, here's a link:

http://www.dnagardens.com/catalogue.htm

Hope this helps,
Don

hi i have 3 diffrent cherries on my yard and i live in the fort vermilion area [it's up north] and i'd say go with the evan's cherry,it's the easest to grow and the best for the first timer and i got mine from the saskatoon farm