Mature cherry tree (in picture below) is looking pretty unhealthy. I decided perhaps I should cut it down. I don’t want to wait for it to die because it’s large and difficult to spray and it’s probably acting as a reservoir of disease. Before I cut it down, I wanted to make sure I had the facts straight.
The internet tells me cherry trees are not long lived - an average of 15-20 years. Does this track with people’s experience? I have an apple tree with terrible looking bark and dead spots like this cherry, but I expect the apple to continue on for years and years. Not sure if I should expect the same with a cherry.
Even though this tree is huge, I can see from satellite images of my house that it was planted around 2005. It is probably a sweet cherry of a variety sold by Gurney’s or Stark Bros or Jackson & Perkins. I have a second cherry tree which is right next to this one so it does have a potential pollinator.
If someone can tell from the pics below if it’s actually sweet/sour cherry that’d be great. It actually fruited a few years ago and there were cherries on it. However, I had other concerns and didn’t pay good attention while it would have been getting ripe.
Reasons to keep the tree:
- It’s pretty when it blooms and it is an attractive shade tree when it has leaves.
- I like cherries (and I already spray stone fruit so that isn’t something new to learn)
Reasons to remove the tree:
- I would need to plant another cherry tree (assuming it’s not self-pollinating) because the other cherry tree has one foot in the grave (fireplace).
- Sweet cherry is very difficult in the mid-Atlantic and sour cherry is not easy either
- It’s very large, difficult to spray completely, and probably a reservoir for disease for my other fruit trees
- It probably will die soon anyways and has a lot of damaged/diseased looking parts
