Sweetheart Cherry Tree for Sale

Sweetheart is the late cherry many home growers want once Stella has finished. Bred in Summerland, Canada, from Van × Newstar, it produces large, firm, heart-shaped fruit with dark red skin, pink-red flesh and a sweet flavour (often 19–23°Brix). It stores well after picking.

In South Africa it is a high-chill variety (around 800–1,000 hours). It belongs in cold, high-altitude gardens — Ceres and the Western Cape highlands, the eastern Free State, cool Mpumalanga — not in hot, humid or low-chill suburbs. Harvest is typically the third week of December, about two to three weeks after Bing, stretching the cherry season into early January in some sites.

It is self-fertile and a useful pollen donor for other sweet cherries. Plant with Stella if you want a longer harvest from two trees. Feed monthly with pelletised manure and 6:1:5 in the growing season. Keep the soil evenly moist from flowering through fruit swell.