Summer Sun

Summer Sun is an excellent modern English dark red cherry variety with firm-soft flesh and a good flavour.

It is one of the best cherry varieties for the UK climate, being a consistently heavy and reliable cropper even if the summer weather is indifferent.

Growing and Training

Summer Sun is not technically self-fertile, but in practice can be considered self-fertile or at least partially self-fertile. It can be pollinated by Stella or Van or Lapins. Summer Sun is itself a very good pollinator of other cherry varieties. The blossom of Summer Sun is also quite resistant to frost damage, helping it to set a crop even in a difficult spring.

Summer Sun grows with a compact spreading habit - if you select the Gisela 5 rootstock it makes a good choice for smaller gardens.

History

Summer Sun was developed in the 1960s at the John Innes Centre, Norfolk UK. It was not originally considered to have any commercial value, and was not even registered for royalty purposes. A trial tree growing at the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale was considered to be only a light cropper - until a keen-eyed researcher realised this was because the tree was on the end of a row, and not properly covered by the anti-bird net which protected the other trees. It was then taken on by the Frank P. Matthews nursery in the west Midlands, who found it to be one of the best cropping mid-season cherries then available. It also proved to be precocious (cropping from an early age) and the blossom was quite resistant to spring frost damage. In short, after a false start it went on to establish itself as one of the best-adapted dessert cherries for the UK climate.

The John Innes insititute was also involved in the very early work on self-fertile cherries in the 1940s - but Summer Sun was not part of that project. It is sometimes reported as being self-fertile, but this is most likely because it can set a crop even in a difficult spring when other varieties might fail.

Summer Sun characteristics

• Gardening skillBeginner
• Fruit persistenceNormal ripening
• Self-fertile?Partially self-fertile
• Pollinating othersGood
• Pick seasonMid
• Keeping1-3 days
• Food usesEating fresh
• Country of originUnited Kingdom
• Period of origin1950 - 1999
• Fruit colourRed

You might also like these varieties

• 
  Lapins
  A popular red mid-season cherry which is easy to grow. Self-fertile.
• 
  Stella
  Stella is perhaps the most popular mid-season red-cherry. Self-fertile and a good pollinator for other cherries.
• 
  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.