Hi everyone, I'm new here. A bit of information about me, I'm from Hamilton Ontario and I'm really new to gardening, so i appologize in advance for any dumb questions I might have. About 3 days ago, i bought a kwanzan cherry tree from a local nursery here, had it delivered and then with my father we planted it in my backyard. Not really sure how old it is, but it's already approximately 11 feet in height. When we planted it, we dug a hole about 1.5 x the root ball (because we added sand in it to break up the clay soil) and dug the hole twice the diameter. We bought root booster, and the instructions said to mix 100 ml of it with 5 L of water. We poured half in the hole, put the tree in and put in the top soil we bought from the nursery, then added the rest. Afterwards my dad sprayed the area gently with about 1 minute or so with the hose. The day after it rained a bit and today the soil felt a bit dry so i gave the tree a light soaking again. Yesterday we bought some red woodchips as mulch. I guess my question is, from the pictures I took (tried to get every possible angle), do you think my tree looks healthy? I'm really worried I might have done something wrong, also, how often should I be watering it? I'm really sorry for asking all these questions but i really appreciate any help. Thanks :)
Re: Is my kwanzan cherry tree healthy? Well, lots of people have read your posting, but no-one has replied yet. I'm guessing you're asking people to predict how healthy your tree will be, and no-one can really predict these things. I'd also guess that if there were some obvious problem, someone might have said so. Kanzans (what we're calling them here) are generally pretty resilient. Douglas Justice, in one of his postings, referred to them as "normally an extremely vigorous, disease resistant cultivar". I know even less about newly planted trees than you do, so I won't give you advice about the watering, except to say you should water it when it's young if there's no rain and the ground starts to get dry. I hope you've planted it with enough room for it to grow and where you won't be tempted to prune it. I can't tell if your tree is grafted, but whether or not, it still would be a good idea to keep an eye out for any new growth branching out from the trunk below where it's branching now. Cut those branches off not flush with the trunk, but about 1/4 inch out from the trunk. This is really important if the tree is grafted and anything growing off the trunk would be a different cultivar - generally a stronger one that could take over your tree. Here we have lots of two-coloured trees, half pink Kanzan and half (or more) white whatever the rootstock (and trunk) was.
Re: Is my kwanzan cherry tree healthy? Hi Wendy, thanks for replying, i really appreciate the advice. I'm still pretty new to this and i'm learning as I go, the part about them being extremely vigorous and resiliant gave me a bit of reassurance and I'm not as worried now. I don't think the tree is grafted, but you raise a really good point, and I'll be sure to keep an eye out for branches that grow too low as they might be invasive. There should be enough room I think, but i haven't had the pleasure of seeing a kanzan grow to it's full size yet, so i'm not 100 %. I hope i wouldn't have to prune it either, it's a beautiful tree and i wouldn't want to ruin it in anyway. Thanks again, by the way if your interested in a couple of free seeds let me know :) I don't have them yet since i just bought them from ebay, but they should arrive any day now. I can give you a few weeping cherry seeds as my way of saying thank you.
Re: Is my kwanzan cherry tree healthy? No thanks on the seeds. But I have to ask - you're planting a weeping cherry tree from seed? Do the seeds come with a cultivar name? I found on one website selling cherry seeds: "Seeds, must be stratified for 60 to 90 days before being sown in late winter or early spring". I hope they come with instructions. I have no idea what that sentence means.
Re: Is my kwanzan cherry tree healthy? Sure, just thought I would offer :) The cultivar name for them is Prunus Subhirtella 'Pendula.' There's a good chance i'll try growing one from a seed. Your right about the stratified part, I don't know too much about it myself, but i 'think' it's where you put them in warm water, something which would get them ready for planting. I could be wrong though. Instructions for germinating were included, hopefully the seeds will arrive soon. Like all the other ornamental cherry trees, the weeping cherry is really nice.
Re: Is my kwanzan cherry tree healthy? Cultivars don't breed true from seeds - you'll just get ordinary wild-type cherry trees come up, without the distinctive characters of the parent. All cherry cultivars have to be propagated by grafting. Stratified, for seeds, means they are kept cold and moist for a period before they germinate. Most temperate-climate plants need this, otherwise the seeds would sprout in autumn and get killed by the winter. So they have a evolved a requirement to experience winter temperatures before they will sprout. Putting them in the fridge at +1°C gives the seeds an 'artificial winter' which breaks this dormancy and allows them to germinate.
