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Prune or remove
novello
Posts: 3
I have 2 flowering cherries (Prunus subhirtella autumnalis), 7 years old.. With a bit of care they have done well over the last years. But little flowers last winter and this spring the only leaves are a small canopy right at the top. Tree surgeon friend said 'Wait until they die and plant something else'. Can I rescue them with pruning now and perhaps spraying? Dead twiggy branches all up the trunk - overall height is about 8-10 metres with only the top quarter in leaf - all the rest looks deadish. We could trim back and plant climbing rose alongside, remove them in stages - or attempt rescue? Any advice welcome, bearing in mind we are elderly and can't wait for a slow growing new tree!.
0
Posts
What a beautiful garden! How hard you must have worked to achieve this. We too work quite hard but the non-stop Oxfordshire winds through the garden make therm all a bit bare on one side. This is not what happened to the winter flowering cherries though as they were sheltered - it's all the others. Yours is the second piece of advice suggesting don't waste another year but dig it up and replace it - so we probably shall. Thank you very much for showing your lovely garden and for replying.
Get rid of it, it will never be a shapely tree once it's as you describe. They're not particularly shapely in maturity anyway due to the thick trunk of the rootstock plant being out of proportion with the delicate branches of the grafted part.
A climber through a dead/dying tree look just like a climber through a dead tree for a few years til the tree rots and falls over.
A pergola for the rose would be a better course
In the sticks near Peterborough
Thank you - we think you are right, having had a long hard look at themboth again today. We're never going to makle them really attractive whatever we do, so out it is. Thanks. Novello.