This fall I'm going to be planting a large area between the street and the fence for the vegetable garden. The planting will be part edible and part native - with some of the edibles being natives, too.
One of the things I want to plant is a sour cherry tree (sweet cherries aren't hardy here). A few years ago I had read about a cherry from Bailey Nurseries - a wholesaler based in Minnesota - but couldn't find the name. Well, I finally did - it's Prunus "Evans Bali."
According to various websites, this is a sour cherry that becomes almost sweet as it stays on the tree. It's very productive, self-fertile and hardy to zone 3. The only issue is that it grows to be 10-15 feet tall. If it's 10 feet, I'm okay, but if it's 15 feet, it might shade part of the vegetable garden on the other side of the fence. I'll have to keep thinking about it. I may end up getting "Meteor" - a very popular choice in these parts, introduced by the University of Minnesota in 1952 - because it's only supposed to 8-10 feet tall.
