Hello, My Cherry tree in the front yard has been losing vigor past couple of years. It was planted 10 yrs ago when it was about 6 feet. Last year the tree was trimmed and landscaping was installed and the tree drip zone was affected some. Some top soil was added around the trunk. Probably a mistake but hope I have not done any serious damage. The tree also has a girdling root (the root does not wrap around the trunk but there is a root which bends and goes across the root flare to the opposite side. Last fall I had an arborist look at the tree concerned about this and some tree sap oozing from the trunk. He said the sap oozing was not a problem as there was no evidence of a borer. The girdling root he said was too late to chop off because it was more than 2 inches in diameter. He recommended fertilizing with arbor kelp, a liquid root based fertilizer which I did last fall. The landscaper had piled on about 4-5 inches of topsoil around the drip zone and had put landscape fabric around the drip zone too. Pretty nice way to choke off the tree. I should have realized, I tore up all the landscape fabric, removed as much top soil from around the tree and the tree seems to be improving. It is still not lush as before, I am wondering how much time it takes for new feeder roots to grow, as the fabric and extra soil could have clobbered the existing feeder roots. This tree has undergone the following stress factors 1) Added soil over root ball 2) Landscape fabric reducing oxygen to the roots 3) Some roots severed during landscaping 4) Tree was trimmed last year 5) Sap used to ooze out couple of years, none see this year till now, but I do see some cracks in the tree trunk 6) Potential girdling root?? Don't know for sure This tree used to be very healthy before 1,2,3 and 4 above were inflicted on it. Condidering this, can I expect this tree to recover? Should I wait for next year? Is there a chance this tree will regain its vigor? Do I just observe the tree this year? What should I do if the tree does not leaf out fully and lushly? I am attaching some pictures of the tree. Thanks for your help. Ranga
That deformed root needs to come off. You might also want to excavate around the rest of the crown to see if there is much more circling of the main roots close to the stem. If most of them turn out to be wrapping around you might think about removing the tree, as in addition to having a thin crown now it will almost certainly fail later due to girdling roots (a common problem in this day of apparently careless container production of trees). While the timing would suggest one or more of the above occurrences being the cause the tree being a cherry means it could just as well have been hit with a coincidental but unrelated affliction.
Get a new arborist for one thing. Kelp has nothing in it in terms of NPK, it is fert fine dinning pedalled by snake-oil dealers who talk about 'elicitor' effects that are not relevant to cherries. What you need is phosphorous, humic-acid, organic matter or something real to stimmulate roots for better uptake of N. Prunning will also give you vigour and if you want to crop your tree I think you should take a lot more out, or your buds will migrate up and out until you need a 20' ladder for one bucket. I would take out a lot of that top and restore a clear central leader (get it thick, remove competing branches) for easy future managment.
