So how was it? I'd love to participate if you have another one. Jerseyrose

I had DH make me a life size wishing well . I almost finished mosaicing the 4 sides .... but I ran out of steam. That's 4 years ago . It's still in the attic . I can't help thinking that I have no room for it when it's done . *sigh*

I know you were probably just looking for something a little different, but there is a reason why Kwanzan and Yoshino are the two most popular varieties. Amanogawa is a flowering cherry tree. "Fruits & Orchards" was not an appropriate place to put this, you should have posted it in the "Trees" forum. Since this was posted in the "Fruits & Orchards" forum, I'll let everyone in on a little tidbit of information. Japanese ornamental (i.e. "flowering") cherries are very very closely related to fruiting cherries (P. avium). In fact, they both happen to have a 2n=16 chromosome count; whereas all the other cherries are 2n=32 (Prunus cerasus, Prunus Serotina, etc). In Japan the original flowering cherries that were found in wild have been categorized into 9 different species, and there is one additional flowering cherry species that was originally native to Southern China and Taiwan. Of course, the Japanese later hybridized these wild cherries into the cultivated ornamental varieties that we see today. The fruit that appears on Japanese flowering cherry trees is very small and generally not suitable for eating. I've read that Kwanzan is sterile, and the Yoshino variety is a terrible pollinator, so these may not be able to pollinate your other cherry trees. Whether it could be possible for one to potentially classify Japanese flowering cherries under the same "species" as fruiting cherries is a matter of opinion; perhaps the analogy of different "races" within the human species is appropriate. Hybridization is certainly possible, resulting in fertile offspring, but the hybrid offspring are often not as hardy or well-adapted to their environment as the parent species. This is an area where there has been very little research.

Above are bush shots of my Scepter'd Isle from last spring...I think it was four years old at the time and had been hard pruned late winter. It gets tall & wide here during the growing season, but not overly floppy as others described. It's almost a non stop bloomer even in full sun in our high summer heat & planted in front of a metal shed that reflects even more heat, but blooms have fewer petals and a more open form during summer. It will blackspot some in our high humidity. I personally love its scent, but I don't mind myrrh/anise fragrance in a rose as long as it's mixed with something else (for comparison, to me Wollerton Old Hall has a pure myrrh/anise scent that I don't like at all). SI's scent is strong & wafting, so if you don't like it, plant it a distance away.