Stella Cherry (pie, or sour cherry)
This is an incredibly hardy, but suicidal tree. Branches grow everywhere – in toward the trunk, across another branch, over and then under another branch – with great abandon. None of the other fruit trees seem hell-bent on smothering themselves with their own growth. This is especially annoying because the deer do a lot of damage to the lower branches – they chew the branch tip down to a random leaf node and the tree grows wildly in whatever direction that happens to be. Don’t let the ruminants do your pruning.
I followed the rules and cut down the vertical growth, the crossing growth, and trimmed the tree to my personal requirement – I have to be able to pick the fruit without a step ladder – so I cut back the overall height. I also took off the secondary trunk and some of the lower branches that had been habitually damaged by foraging deer. And now, the “after”:
Much better – I can even get in and clean up the errant strawberries around the trunk. This tree has a very nice caliper. I use white latex paint mixed with Surround CP to keep out borers and discourage pests, and a strip of fabric-backed duct tape coated with TreeGuard to catch the ants.
I’ll bet this tree will have new growth in a week. Bonus picture of the alpine garden, still unaffected by the recent 35 degree nights.
Tags: garden, orchard fruit