Another sweet cherry grown on Flathead Lake, Skeena is considered a later ripening sweet cherry as it ripens a couple weeks after Bing, Skeena is another Summerland, BC Research Center cross of a Van/Stella hybrid and a Bing/Stella hybrid. The flavor of Stella is certainly imparted into Skeena. Excellent flavor at least the one’s we’ve tried growing around Flathead Lake. The hardiness Skeena gets from its Van parentage may be slightly offset by the lack of hardiness from the Bing side of its parentage. That said, Skeena is probably the least hardy sweet cherry we grow. For Montana, it is likely only good for Missoula, around Flathead Lake, and a few other warmer microclimates in the state. But again, as it goes for all these sweet cherries, zone hardiness matters less than if you see a drop in temperature below 0F before Dec. 1st (depending on soil saturation point and the number of hours between 32F and 15F in Sept. and Oct.) coupled with the trees’ innate fall hardening off traits (irrespective of how early you cut off the water in the Fall to initiate hardening off).

These trees are grafted onto Krymsk 6.