Sunburst

Sunburst is a good modern self-fertile cherry variety, with delicate flesh, and a good sweet mild cherry flavour. It is also easy to pick the large fruits.

It can be considered an improved version of the popular Stella cherry, to which it is closely related and shares many of its good qualities.

Growing and Training

Sunburst is a precocious cherry variety, and starts bearing fruit within 2-4 years.

It is self-fertile, but if you want another cherry for pollination its flowering period exactly matches that of Stella.

History

Sunburst was developed by the Summerland research station in British Columbia, Canada and released in 1965. It is a cross between Van and Stella.

Sunburst characteristics

• Gardening skillAverage
• Fruit persistenceNormal ripening
• Self-fertile?Self-fertile
• Pollinating othersAverage
• Pick seasonMid - mid / late July
• Keeping1-3 days - in a fridge
• Food usesEating fresh
• Country of originCanada
• 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.
• 
  Summer Sun
  Summer Sun crops heavily even in poor weather. Partially 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.