Romance Series Dwarf CherriesThe University of Saskatchewan’s Dr. Bob Bors and Rick Sawatsky created and released a successful series of hardy dwarf sour cherries that can be grown in the prairies.
The Romeo, Juliet, Valentine, Crimson Passion and Cupid are all apart of the Romance series.Sour cherries tend to be more hardy than their sweeter cousins shipped from British Columbia. The Romance Series cherries we designed to tolerate milder summers and colder winters than lapins, bing or stacatto cherries. But don’t be fooled by the name, these “sour” cherries actually rate equally if not higher on the Brix scale for sugar measurements. The Crimson Passion and Romeo weigh in at 22Bx, Juilet at 20Bx and Cupid at 19Bx on the Brix scale.
To give you some sweet perspective, a “sweeter” cherry is usally picked at 20Bx when being shipped for sale in your grocery store. The longer you leave your cherry on the tree the sweeter it will be. So growing a sour cherry tree means nothing of the sort, we should call it the Hardy cherry.
Each of these cherries have some distinctive traits but with very similar qualities. Some are these cultivars are better for fresh eating, others are good for processing and juicing. If you are interested in fruit from July to mid September consider planting all of the varieties. Each cultivar has about a three-week harvest period. You should expect to see some fruit three years after planting, with greater yields after five years and peak capacity after seven years.