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Saturday Morning Garden Blogging: Vol 21.10 - George Washington Did What He Had To Do [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-05
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Rainier Cherry Blossoms
My cherry tree saga begins years ago, around the time we purchased this house. This house had two-three trees out back. One tree was the double apple tree (Honey Crisp and Sweet Sixteen) and the other was a newly planted Rainier cherry tree. One.
Don't assume the people who have a home before you knew what they were doing with lawn and garden choices. I did assume and it took a year or two of tiny aborted cherries for me to actually wonder why my tree wasn’t giving me ripe cherries and look it up.
Healthy Rainier in Spring 2021
Turns out Rainier cherry trees need a pollinator tree. I had figured it was just too young to give ripe cherries. Don’t assume a new homeowner knows a damn thing about the trees in her yard either.
Per budget constraints, we wait. Which we shouldn't have. Finally I put my foot down in spring 2022. We buy a Bing cherry tree. It takes! It's growing, but still too young to put off any cherries. But we have our pollinator!
As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the second best time is now.
In the meantime, the Rainier has grown huge. And is oozing a brown gel and just not putting off as many blooms. The brown gel is gummosis and a sign that the tree is under stress. Great, so the Rainier cherry tree is dying. Why? I have no idea. At that time I was not spraying the tree, as I did not know better, but nothing was attacking it. Even the bunnies left it alone.
Lichen on younger trees often means you have a stressed or dying tree.
Not so for the Bing cherry. Winter of 2022 arrives, the winter of tree death and the first winter for the Bing. The bunnies chew above the protective fence I put around the trunk of the Bing, thanks to feet of record snowfall. Of course they did. I applied Tree Wound and pruned the damage in a severe but needed cut. I crossed my fingers, eyes and toes. The Bing survived the winter of 2022-23. No cherries, but it was still just a baby tree, too early for fruit in even the best conditions.
Buds on the Bing Cherry Tree
Knowing the Rainier is dying means I need to buy another cherry tree to pollinate the Bing. So I buy a Royal Ann cherry tree online. It was later in the cherry tree season, so I was shocked and thrilled they had one in stock! A more experienced fruit grower would have known better.
It was a log. No way this tree was a sapling. This was a dang ol’ TREE, and overly pruned for shipping. No way this tree should have been shipped. I knew in my gut there was no way this would survive but I *had* to try. I like a garden challenge, but generally when I choose the challenge. The tree did leaf out, for a few months, but by the time summer ended, it was dead. So that was that for the Royal Ann.
This was the Royal Ann I was sent. Like this. I planted petunias at the base to jazz it up while I waited to see if it would leaf out. For funsies.
Meantime I am monitoring The Arbor Foundation; the organization sells Rainier whips very cheap with membership. Problem is, when they have any in stock, they ship during ridiculous times of the year. The baby tree would fry or freeze. Late fall and winter shipping doesn't work here in subzero land.
Spring 2024 arrives. I have a dying Rainier, a dead Royal Ann and a genuinely thriving Bing. I've learned how and what to spray, and when. The Bing is very alive, no signs of stress. I am a proud plant mama.
Back to research. I go to Lowes in April to check out what they have for trees. Lowes because of prices, that's where I got the Bing cherry tree and Lowes has a one year return policy on trees. Anyhow, I keep checking back til the trees finally come in. No Rainier in 2024, at all. But, there are Lapins and Black Tartarian. Time to research. I choose the Lapins as it’s a perfect pollinator for the Bing. Get her planted and settled in, pruned appropriately. She is happy! Leafing out, all of the good things. I mastered transplanting trees years ago, no worries there. It is what happens after the plant is settled and happy that gets me.
Summer arrives. The Rainier is slightly improving with the sprays, giving just enough flowers and pollen to pollinate a few cherries on the Bing tree. Bing looking great, the new Lapins leafing out and just a perfect baby tree.
I'm getting the hang of this cherry tree thing! Finally. Notoriously fussy fruit trees, bunnies, four years of drought and some serious mistakes per my lack of knowledge. But here I am, doing good things in my backyard orchard.
Then June 20th happens. The Flood, worst I’ve seen in my lifetime. And the resulting herbicide run-off that took hold in the following weeks. We live on a decent slope, it never floods here! The baby Lapins is directly in the path where the slope directed water. I am hoping the tree roots can handle the 11 1/2" of rain we got.
Dying Lapins. Leaves were the first to cry for help after the flood. Discolor, then drop.
It can't. By the end of summer, the Lapins cherry is clearly dying. If it had a larger root system and it hadn't been two months from planting, I'm confident it would have survived. The Bing was close by and had no ill effects from those awful few days.
The Bing cherry tree, photo taken around same time as above dying Lapins photo. This is a very healthy cherry tree. Giving me its first cherries in the awful summer of 2024.
Yet, still, in the year of herbicide damage and a tree killing flood, I end up with three Rainier cherries and six Bing cherries to harvest, the first from the Bing tree.
Rainier Cherries 2024, from the almost dead tree.
I'm genuinely floored I got anything. Fruit trees are hard. Biggest piece of advice I have for new small orchard fruit tree stewardship is go self-fertile if you can. Learn on the trees you don’t need to have two of.
It's now spring 2025. I've got a dying Rainier that I need to chop down. A healthy vibrant Bing, sprayed and pruned to gorgeous backyard orchard perfection, yet with no healthy pollinator. I have a Royal Ann log in the log pile and a dead Lapins tree in the ground. I pull up the Lapins; it comes right out of the ground like a large twig. It's dead-dead.
I am done trying to time The Arbor Foundation to get a cheap Rainier. It’s never available when it is safe to ship.
I am at Lowes on March 29th. Places around here do not get their fruit trees in until mid to late April. It's a cold windy sleety day. I spy trees in the back of the garden center. I was there to look at pots, not sure why I even walked to that faraway section of the vast and mostly empty outdoor garden space. I was called, I guess.
There are about 10-15 cherry trees. I check tags. I spy a Bing, which does me no good, and a Lapins, which does. In the corner is a single Rainier cherry tree.
Which is now mine.
Do we feel sorry for the tree?
For Malarky Matt and anyone who wants to see what I do for dahlia cuttings:
Pictured about a month after cutting. I just pop them into very wet potting soil in a small plastic cup with no drainage. Put under soft lights in a warm spot, but no wind/breeze. Once they are 2-3 weeks old and clearly keepers, then snip a few drainage holes along the bottom rim of the cup. Now keep soil moist instead of wet. Do not transfer the cuttings to another container until they are over a month old. Keep the soil moist until you begin to see roots (around a month), then you can begin to allow the soil to dry out like you would for normal seedling. Getting fan every other day now, started with a few hours a day at about 3 weeks. I will keep these cuttings in these cups until I see a hearty root system, then ok to transfer. That will probably be in another 2-3 weeks.
Sounds fussy, but it’s very easy and low maintenance. You pop them in wet soil and do nothing but look at them sometimes for a few weeks.
Video mine = 1 minute.
Thank you for reading, join the conversation below!
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