Yet Another Newby

18 May '08 4:36 am

Hmmm ... sounds like you might have Kanzan there. I include two pics of text from Geoffrey Chadbund's book "Flowering Cherries" on Kanzan.

The good news: Kanzan grows upward - perhaps you can encourage this and within a few years the problem can be solved entirely by pruning and growing. I must agree; Kanzan's unsubtle intensity in spring leads to wonderful autumn richness because of the concentrated pigments - or at least so I imagine. I too have a love-hate relationship with these trees, but luckily mine are all planted where they are seen amongst other trees and so their colour is neutralised a little.

The other possibility (besides trashing them) is transplanting: a laborious and expensive business, and I doubt whether you'll have great success from my experience of cherries' ability to sulk. But there are ways of doing this! However, when push comes to shove, and especially if you see yourselves staying here for another 20 plus years, then the ruthless approach is the one I recommend!

Here's another, rather random and unexpected thought: can one not tone down the colour with companion planting - you'll have to check what flowers at the same time in your area. Blues and mauves can do it - wisteria into the cherries, bluebells below them... as I say, just a rather random thought needing some careful observation in season.

18 May '08 9:28 am

Hee hee - it's lovely to see some-one else's garden has that 'getting deader' autumn look! (Sorry about appalling grammar, Jack will not be impressed)

To me it all looks wonderful. But I understand your attitude to the flowering cherries. The NZ wind seems to know exactly when to huff and puff in spring - just when you've 'discovered' the beauty of the cherry blossom, and decided that it's quite a pretty pink, and just - maybe just - with a bit of pruning...

Anyway, it's great to meet you and to see those beautiful rural scenes. Actually, I love autumn and winter in NZ, but then I'm biassed!
Cheers, and happy posting.

18 May '08 1:01 pm

Commiserations on'previousowners'!
Original owners here planted conifers-By the time we bought here,7 years ago,they were HUGE!!!Two cedars are real pains as they are completely blocking sun and light,not to mention a carpet of needles year round.
Next owner planted things close together without contemplating mature sizes,eg. three trees-elm,cherry and gingko about a metre apart..We have had to sacrifice two in order to save one,as they were pushing each other.
well,that's enough grumping today...What I was really going to say is that we successfully replanted a flowering cherry.As I said before it was crowded in-this one was beside a maple and a conifer-about a metre apart.We dug around taking as much soil as we could,then replanted it into a big hole.Watered daily,and it survived fine.It would have been 10 years old-the trunk was very slender and roots were not deep,so you could aske around the neighbourhood if anyone wants them..
Your place looks wonderful by the way,and I am looking forward to your spring garden photos.
Dixie.

19 May '08 9:26 am

Thanks for the input - these trees are posing a real problem and its nice to get an outsider's perspective on the issue.

Jack, your book is most probably right - they do sound like Kanzan. I had to smirk when I read "Kanzan is not recommended for avenue planting as two parallel lines of this bright pink would be extremely artificial looking". It's a hard pink to describe - as in your book's picture, it is not really dark or even particularly bright, but it is unpleasant none-the-less. The frothy, fluffy, marshmallowy nature of the blooms seems to make it worse! We have a line of other cherries by the house that are a very deep cerise pink and these are not nearly as offensive.

Dixie, good on you for successfully moving an adult cherry tree! I hear they are rather temperamental. We have several people keen to be gifted a cherry tree or two but not enough have homes - we have 54 cherries and homes for 5!

We have had a great deal of expert advice on the best course of action. An arbourist, two tree pruners, a company that specialises in tree transplants, our mate the digger driver, his mate (another digger driver), and my cousin (a tree feller). There have been a lot of hmmms, what-ifs, and maybes, plus quite a few unrepeatable phrases!

The tree transplanters said cherries are nightmares to move but if we took down all the fences and asked the neighbours permission to carve up some of their show jumping paddock and front lawn they could definately scoop out most of them. The digger men said no worries we can cut through here and knock through that, flatten this bit and then dig them up but the fences might take a bit of a beating. The arbourist and tree pruners said yes, yes, they definately can be trained not to scratch cars or people on mowers, absolutely yes, by removing this branch, this one, and these ones, and maybe that one too...the trees will no longer look like Japanese cherries and will only have a half a branch left each but after 10 or so years they may look ok again. My cousin said he could remove the problem in half a day with the help of his chainsaw, a commercial chipper machine, and a stump grinder.

Sometimes when you write stuff down, the answer suddenly seems much clearer!!

22 May '08 2:38 am

I say it again: WELCOME TO THE FORUM!

I like your style - writing and gardening Wink

22 May '08 5:56 am

Shades of George Washington here-what to do?Your story gets more fascinating by the day,Kerole,and I am sure we are all waiting to see what will happen here Rolling Eyes

Our cherry was about the same size,and after digging around,the tree can be lifted from the driveway side by putting a chain around the trunk and lifting with a tractor with a front-end loader.I can't see why the tree removallers say it is hard to shift-perhaps they are justifying charging you a lot to do it.
Dixie.

22 May '08 8:21 pm

Yes the cost of digging the cherries up is not a pretty thing but this in itself wouldn't put us off.

The cherry dilemma is one of the two projects we hope to have resolved this winter. The other project involves beautifying (!) our pond - this will definately take longer than a few months but we hope to make some major decisions such as new trees and paths etc soonish. I may even start a new thread...

23 May '08 6:40 am

Yes please.Do you know Goose from near your place?She is a busy lady with a full-time job,but her garden is lovely and flowing...She has a lovely pond area and if you can find her thread it might help visualize pond things.Can you show us nosey-parkers[nosey-but in a caring and sharing way] a pic of the pond so far?
Dixie.

23 May '08 7:46 pm

I guess I should bite the bullet and post pics of our pond project. It makes me nervous as it is a hairy beast of a thing. But I will snap some pics and start a new thread...thanks for the encouragement dixie. Oh and by the way, I don't know Goose (although she must live only 10 minutes or so from me) but I tracked down some old posts of her pond and garden - very tidy and well behaved.

24 May '08 9:44 am

Please post. We all love peeping at other people's ponds. Warning - Jack's is so huge its called a lake? Or is that a dam? *? Oops - not sure.

Yet Another Newby

Too pink cherries...

Hi

Thoughts...

The Cherry Dilemma

Kerole:

cherry trees

Expensive Cherries

plans for the garden

The Pond