Bird Cherry Trees

Bird Cherry Trees

Bird cherry, Prunus padus, is fast-growing, native, deciduous tree or large shrub. In early summer, they have strands of small, almond scented, white flowers that ripen into dark fruit which are popular with birds. As with most cherries, the foliage colours beautifully in autumn. They're suitable for medium-sized gardens, reaching a height of about 10 metres.
You can also buy sapling Bird Cherries, which make great country hedge plants.
Browse our cultivated, ornamental flowering cherry tree, including the Colorata and Watereri Bird Cherries.

Delivery season: Bird cherry trees are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.
Choosing a size: Small trees are cheaper, easier to handle and more forgiving of less than ideal aftercare, so they're best for a big planting project. If instant impact is your priority, or if you are only buying a few plants for use in a place where it's convenient to water them well in their first year, then you may as well use bigger ones. All our bareroot trees are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Features

• Height: To 10m
• Soil: Almost any decently well drained
• Use: Screening, avenue, urban
• Colour: White flowers in April
• RHS Plants for Pollinators
• Bareroot delivery only: November-March

Growing Bird Cherry Trees

They'll grow on any reasonably well drained soil, including poor, compacted urban ones, and thrive on chalk. They need close to full sun to flower really well, but otherwise tolerate partial shade.

History & Trivia

Known as hackberries (also egg-, hag-, heck-, and hedgeberry), the bitter fruit are edible, but you wouldn't want to eat them unless you cooked them up with plenty of sugar. The stone in the centre of the fruit is poisonous and should be removed before cooking. Better to leave them for the birds. The young spring leaves can be steamed or boiled.

Other common names include black dogwood and hog cherry.

Standard trees are measured by their girth in centimetres 1 metre above ground level: their trunk's waist measurement. Unlike sapling trees and hedge plants, standards aren't measured by their height, which will vary quite a bit both between and within species.
So, a 6/8cm standard tree has a trunk with a circumference of 6-8cm and an 8/10 standard has a trunk 8-10cm around. This measurement makes no difference to the tree's final height.
On average, standard trees are 2-3.5 metres tall when they arrive, but we cannot tell you precisely how tall your trees will be before we deliver them.