The fruit is edible, being an ingredient of juice, jam, and wine, and in pickled vegetables and mushrooms.

[11] It is also grown as an ornamental plant, prized for its flowers and fruit, and pruned for bonsai, twin-trunk or clump shapes, or left upright.

Several cultivars are grown; examples include 'Graebneriana' (Germany), 'Insularis' (Japan and Korea), 'Leucocarpa' (Manchuria; white fruit), and 'Spaethiana' (Europe).

[12] It is not a good cherry choice for places around the world where tolerance for heat and humidity is needed such as the southern United States.

[12] Carl Peter Thunberg described the species from cultivated material collected in Japan between August 1775 and November 1776 while based on Dejima Island in Nagasaki Bay.