Stella

Stella is an excellent self-fertile cherry variety, easy to grow and productive. The large dark red cherries are very juicy and sweet, with a typical cherry flavour.

If your only experience of cherries is from a market stall or supermarket then you will be very pleasantly surprised with the flavour of fresh Stella cherries straight from your own tree.

Stella was the first of the modern self-fertile cherries, introduced from Canada in the 1970s. Until that time growing cherries at home meant planting at least two different varieties and dealing with the complexities of cherry cross-pollination. Being both self-fertile and having such a good flavour, Stella rapidly established itself as the ideal garden cherry tree, since it could be grown on its own. Although there are now other self-fertile cherry varieties, if you only intend to grow one cherry tree, Stella is still one of the best choices.

As well as being self-fertile, it is also a good pollinator for other cherries including the traditional English cherries (most of which are not self-fertile). It is therefore a very good starting point if you think you may add further cherry trees to your garden or orchard in the future.

Growing and Training

Stella is self-fertile, reliable, and a good choice if you are new to growing dessert cherries. It does best in areas with mild spring weather.

One of the disadvantages of self-fertile cherries is they tend to over-crop, and whilst this might seem like a good thing, it leads to smaller fruits with less concentrated flavour. It is therefore a good idea to thin the fruitlets just after the blossom has finished.

History

Stella was developed by the Summerland research station in British Columbia, Canada, and released in 1968. Its parentage included a self-fertile cherry seedling raised by researchers at the John Innes Institute in the UK, derived from two traditional varieties, Emperor Francis and Napoleon.

Stella was the first widely-available self-fertile cherry, and by chance was introduced at around the same time as the first dwarfing cherry rootstock - Colt. This combination revolutionised cherry-growing, because it meant for the first time it was possible to grow cherries in an average garden - thanks to Stella's self-fertility only one tree was needed, and the Colt rootstock kept the height manageable.

Many modern self-fertile cherry varieties trace their parentage to Stella.

Stella characteristics

• Gardening skillBeginner
• Fruit persistenceNormal ripening
• Self-fertile?Self-fertile
• Pollinating othersGood
• Pick seasonMid
• Keeping1-3 days - in a fridge
• Food usesEating fresh
• Country of originCanada
• Period of origin1950 - 1999
• Fruit colourRed - dark

You might also like these varieties

• 
  Lapins
  A popular red mid-season cherry which is easy to grow. Self-fertile.
• 
  Summer Sun
  Summer Sun crops heavily even in poor weather. Partially self-fertile.
• 
  Sunburst
  A large red mid-season cherry with a good sweet mild flavour. Self-fertile.
• 
  Sweetheart
  One of the best-flavoured late-season cherries for the UK climate. Self-fertile.

More about cherry trees

Sweet cherries are easy to grow as long as you have a sunny sheltered spot. The main challenge is to keep the birds off - use a net or horticultural fleece to cover the tree or at least some of the branches in late spring.

If you only have space for one cherry tree make sure it is a self-fertile one. We highlight these on our website - look for Stella, Sweetheart, Sunburst, or Lapins.Self-fertile cherry trees are also good pollinators for the more traditional English cherry varieties.

Sweet cherries are often categorised by colour. Red cherries have red or skins and light red flesh, and nearly all the self-fertile cherries are in this category. So-called 'white' cherries usually have pale red or pink or white skins and pale flesh. So-called 'black' cherries usually have dark red or black skins.

Sweet cherries are also categorised by their picking season. Early season equates to mid / late June in southern England. Mid-season is late June / early July. Late-season is mid-July onwards.