Will you help me save a cherry tree from a chainsaw?
It’s on the path to being cut down, maybe in a month or less, to relieve pressure it’s putting against a retaining wall that has already cracked.
I hope to find someone who can attempt to transplant the tree to a new location with more space for it. And perhaps someone else, if needed, who can offer that space.
The tree is big, mature. It’s in Marin County, north of San Francisco. I’m administering an estate that includes the house where the tree stands, in the back, already cramped, overlooking a swimming pool.
House renovations will begin soon, and they will very likely include removing this monument to foresight and patience.
Do you happen to know the right someone?
I need advice: how else to publicize this matter? I think I should talk to the county’s agricultural extension. And to local nurseries and garden clubs. But where else?
Maybe some here would share this on their social-media accounts?
If you moved it ( or try to move it) I believe it would be very, very expensive. Sometimes re-transplanted items may not do very well after the trees are moved, lots of root disruption. IMO
The rootball alone will weigh as much as a car. I am not sure, but could attempting to move it cause even more damage to the wall? It will also send up suckers for a while from the stump. One of those suckers could be left to live and grow back into a tree.
The only way to do that save, as a move, is cut and paste onto a new root stock. Graft and go for another life as a baby tree,
That tree has probably already cracked the swimming pool, and attempting to move it certainly would. Unless the swimming pool is also scheduled to be removed, you’d be looking at a huge damage situation.
I read that cherry trees have shallow roots. I thought if the branches were heavily trimmed, this one could be moved. In its spot, it’s quite cramped, without the room to have created a large root system near the soil surface.
To ltilton’s idea that the roots may have cracked the pool, I have, since this photo, partially drained it and have not seen that yet, above the now-lower water line.
I should repeat, for clarity, this is not my house, but part of an estate I am tasked with liquidating.
I am sorry, it sounds like you are rather attached to this particular cherry tree. If it is a sentimental attachment (family member, etc.) the best way for this tree to live on in perpetuity would be to graft scion from this tree onto a suitable rootstock and plant it elsewhere.
There are likely cherry varieties in today’s offerings that produce better tasting fruit, a larger volume of fruit or with less insect/disease pressure than this old tree does, so the only reason to preserve a piece of this history is going to be something out of the norm, but this tree is not a suitable candidate for transplantation, only for removal.
