My dwarf pie cherry tree has died, perhaps from old age. At least I found no patent signs of injury or disease. We removed it and dug out the stump (no easy task on an older tree).
I want to put in a replacement, but not a dwarf. The place we had the old one is ideal. Is there some reason I wouldn't put the replacement there next spring, or something I should do to prepare the site?
These are good questions. Most likely if you dug the stump out. There may be some woody roots that are left without and energy source. They will be predisposed to rot decay fungi. As long as the tree is healthy, you are planting, you plant correctly, mulch correctly, I would wait until the second growing season before any stem pruning or fertilization,you should be OK. I guess some organic fertilizer would be fine. Do root prune at planting time to remove torn woody roots. With a sharp tool and straight across like the end of a straw. Look up "root pruning" at pruning link below. Other than that -
Many tree problems are associated with the following: They are Case Sensitive.
Troubles in the Rhizosphere
Improper Pruning
I'd plant close but no exactly where the old one was. Remember it died. I'd hate to see you lose another. Betsy
I lost two about a year apart, dwarf North Star. I wasn't going to replace them but missed them too much, waited about 3 years. If a virus killed them (they were about 30 years old), I was afraid to put new trees near there, but not much sunny, open space in my smallish yard.
Somebody came around, and I paid to have the stumps dug out, but there are still remains underneath that need to decay.
I wouldn't want anything but a dwarf. They are good producers, at least mine were, every year, more than I needed, didn't do a thing to them ever except plant well, water and mulch the first year. I bought two NS at Home Depot early this spring and planted them a few feet away from where the others had been, would have gone further if I had had more space to work with. Then the deep freeze killed all the buds, one was dead.
So I didn't want to lose a year, they had a warranty, so first made sure they had something left, dug up and returned the NS and came home with 2 Montmorency. I should have taken more care about the shape of them, but not much to choose from that were close to the same and looked nice. Then some bugs or some critter, possibly deer but never saw any in the yard, ate a bunch of leaves off the one, never had any problem like that with the NS's that I can remember.
So maybe next spring, I'll dig them out while they are still under warranty unless they bud out too nicely and go back to NS and probably bite the bullet and get some nicer ones from a nursery. I saw some huge NS's at Lowe's, but they were larger than I would have wanted to tackle.
Good luck. You don't need a pair for cross pollination I guess, but I liked having two.
Maybe it was a freak or got mislabelled somewhere in the process. Maybe some do get large like those young 'uns I saw at Lowe's.
Seems mine grew to no more than 7' tall and 5' wide and stayed like that for many years.
II'd want rid of it, too, but I do hate killing trees :-).
Having two North Stars instead of one should help with the
They told me at the nursery where I bought the NS's that it required two to cross pollinate. Now I've read that is not true. Anyway, your satisfaction with the Montmorency is encouraging, and I hope mine will do well.
I so wish I had room for a couple dwarf apricot trees. I have what I thought was supposed to be a dwarf Moorpark, and late frosts almost always kill the fruit, once they got wormy, and about 3 years ago loaded with gorgeous apricots (somebody stole all the low ones I was watching until they were just right to pick). It looks like a standard to me. It's a crooked old thing now (because it had to stretch out to get to the sun), I think I will give it one more year. I read Sungold or Moongold are more hardy, but I could only have one.
Haven't seen any around for a long time, but when I first moved here, two neighbors had some standards that bore tons of smaller fruit without fail every year, messy, but delicious.
Nobody bothers much with fruit trees any more. Why don't more people want fruit trees? New luxury homes have sprung up all around, but they seem to want yards that are professionally landscaped. They all look kind of blah to me, same old, same old. Some of it is practical. Low maintenance. Reliable in our climate.
I go along with your feelings on dwarf trees. I don't know why anyone would prefer a full size tree, especially on a small lot. I had a North Star, which was supposed to be a dwarf, but grew to great size and took up a lot of space. I might have kept it, but it never produced more than a handful of cherries every year, so I pulled it out. Having two North Stars instead of one should help with the pollination and result in more fruit, even though that tree is self fertile. I still have my Montmorency, which has consistently produced fruit for the last 15 years.
Sherwin
I have Montmorency's, as I think they make the best pies, and I don't have room in the front yard for two trees.
I too have a very small yard, so the place where the old one died is about the only place to put a new one without removing something else. Our dwarf Montmorency in the back yard was not affected, which inclines me to think the cause of death was not a virus.
I'm looking at the non dwarf variety, as they say it will be 15 to 20 feet tall, which will nicely shade the porch, and let the birds eat the fruit at the top, while we enjoy the lower fruit. I have a non-dwarf Stella in the back, which has done quite well, although it had mold on the fruit a couple of years ago, which I attribute to inadequate pruning. My good luck with the non-dwarf Stella is inclining me to try a non-dwarf Montmorency.
I have heard that, too, so hope mine will be ok. When I made pies with the NS's, I diluted the juice with water a little because they have high acid, and everybody loved them. They freeze well and easily and keep longer than most people keep frozen stuff.
I would think mine was due to one having been damaged by a teen going rambunctious, then getting scraped with the mower (it had a bole-like scar growth at the ground level). But when the other went that wasn't like it, it was either a virus or they had just reached the end of their life cycle.
Now that you explain your needs and desires, if that is what you want, it should be fine. The shade factor is important, much as I love my trees, I am paying for not having enough sunny spots for my flowers. One must choose. I didn't think of some of that when I planted many years ago. So you deal with what is.
Go with the standard and be happy with it. It will look pretty at blossoming and fruiting time. Bet you wish you had more room, too, but again we have to deal with what is or get a bigger place which is not a good option for many of us.
And you may get occasional people asking if they can have some like I did :-). I had plenty to share because I really didn't NEED that many, just enjoy watching them do their thing and a few pies to look forward to.
This is an example of an intelligent thread. Everybody had something important to say and everybody said it well.
It may have been intelligent from content, but I don't understand how 9 replies to the original poster can wind up with only 4 references in your email. Maybe
it's some kind of complicated branching issue?
Sherw> This is an example of an intelligent thread. Everybody had something
"Then the deep freeze killed all the buds, one was dead."
How do buds freeze? I thought they super-cooled. Ref: Milon F. George; Michael J. Burke Cold Hardiness and Deep Supercooling in Xylem of Shagbark Hickory Plant Physiol. (1977) 59, 319-325
Something I do not understand is how Xylem super-cools. The xylem is what the cambium zone produces to the inside. However, by the time fall and winter comes, the xylem has differentiated and becomes sapwood not xylem. Kind of confusing.
I don't know. Maybe it was a poor choice of words. When I bought the trees late one evening and planted them the very next day, the buds were swollen and green but not leafed out except but a few. I planted, watered and mulched well, and all the buds turned brown one the one tree, and it looked dead but for two green buds. The other one suffered quite a bit of similar damage but not as bad, still leafed out quite a bit after planting and through that cold spell. I tried to put garbage bags over the trees and take them off in the morning when the temps rose enough again so that late bad frost that dipped into the teens wouldn't kill my newly-planted trees even though I knew established trees could have handled it.
I wanted two to match, like not one NS and one Montmorency. By that time all HD had left was Montmorency, and I felt darn lucky to have found the NS ones at a good price. They were $25 apiece. I was lucky HD honored the warranty because technically the one tree wasn't that bad, but they didn't give me a hassle about it when I returned them both.
It was a struggle for me to plant them in the first place, I didn't think I could do that kind of hard work any more, had to dig through and remove sod which I used to patch a couple bad spots in the lawn, and make two really deep, wide holes, pile up all the dirt on plastic. Then to have to dig them up again in order to take them back and plant new ones didn't make me too happy, but I was so determined I wanted cherry trees again, so I did it. I was exhausted frankly, but hard work has given me back a little more stamina, not as much as I'd like :-(
Over 30 years ago when I planted my first NS, I went through a regular nursery, and they wanted $50 for two. It is possible my memory is bad and they wanted $40. Anyway, I got them to give me a break on the price, and they subtracted $10, and those trees were marvelous for years. Needless to say, I was very sad to lose them and cut them down, had help with that because I wasn't feeling well at the time.
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