DIY

Planting a 4-in-1 Cherry Jubilee Tree (Attempt #2)

By Ryan Hurd · Published Sep 19, 2026

This is our second attempt at a cherry tree, and so far it's going considerably better than the first. That one died off within two to three weeks of going in the ground, though we left it planted for about two and a half months just in case it decided to come back. It never did. This time we went with an Online Orchards 4-in-1 Cherry Jubilee from Home Depot. Three of the four varieties are fruiting -- Sweetheart, Bing, and Rainier, the last of which was the one Alycia really wanted -- and the fourth is Kwanzan, a flowering variety rather than a fruiting one. I'm honestly still working out how I feel about that. Part of me wishes all four were fruiting, but the other part figures a Kwanzan in bloom is a genuinely nice centerpiece in its own right, whenever it gets around to flowering. Our first attempt was a 4-in-1 as well -- Van, Tartarian, Rainier, and a fourth variety I can't actually remember at this point. My mother and I planted this one together, at around 9 or 10 PM, dark enough that we ended up doing it by headlamp. We dug out more than we did the first time and mixed in a 4 cu. ft. bag of organic garden soil rather than just dropping it into whatever was already there. This ground used to be farmland, best I can tell, and it shows -- dense, clay-heavy soil that fought us the whole way. I ended up breaking a wooden shovel trying to dig deeper into it, which stung a little, but getting the tree in and looking healthy afterward made up for it. Sprinklers are set to run on the tree at 6 AM and 6 PM for an hour each, and the hope is that's enough for it to get real roots down before our first frost hits. It's been about a week and a half now and it's already noticeably healthier than the first tree ever managed to look. Fingers crossed for actual cherries next year. If timing works out and we get fruit off this one alongside our white peach tree in the same season, a cherry and white peach pie is absolutely happening.