Received a Juliet cherry tree from Gurney’s today and it arrived and the rootstock seemed…odd. See below. Is this an issue wherein I should contact Gurney’s, or am I missing something?
It looks like it had a bunch of shoots which were only relatively recently pruned off?
If it isn’t diseased all that really matters is if it grows, so I just plant and see. Those trees are usually propagated by rooting so I don’t think you need to worry about getting a rootstock growth.
2 Likes
Here is a slightly better image. It just looks like the bark is separating or something. Although, I’ll try as you suggested and see if she grows! She already has some green popping out, which is a good sign I suppose.
That looks like a shoot they didn’t get trimmed off very well. Bush cherries tend to sucker a lot and it looks like they wanted to sell the tree without any suckers so pruned it late. That particular shoot it looks like they got sloppy with.
3 Likes
That makes sense. At first I thought it was the rootstock failing, but that doesn’t hold water if it’s a rooted bush. Thanks for the thoughtful feedback! I’ll plant and see how she does before sending a missive of complaints to Gurney’s.
2 Likes