Overly trimmed cherry tree in winter

[Ramprat]

Hi

 

I came across this site looking for advice, I have a medium well established cherry tree in my front garden that has been a go producer of fruit but since we moved in a few years ago we hadn't trimmed it partly due to other expensive job's being required and partly due to the fear of killing it as my neighbours lost both of theirs to disease.

 

Unfortunately it had become to overgrown and was impacting on a public path so we knew we had to get it sorted soon and being caught of guard this afternoon by a gentleman who knocked on the door to ask if we wanted it done at a reduced cost as he was doing another tree nearby I agreed.

 

Dispite asking him if it was ok to cut it in winter and him saying it was ok to do ive since read that you shouldn't cut fruit, especially cherry trees, when I'm damp or wet weather is likely, I.e winter!!

 

If just had another look at the work done and again Dispite asking for just a light trim as I know you shouldn't remove more than 10-20% it appears he's removed much more than that, possibly up to 50 or 60%!!

 

Is there anything I can do to help and protect the tree? In the past I know people used to apply limb sealers etc but I believe in recent times this has been shown to cause more harm, is that correct, I also saw elsewhere something about burning the wounds to seal and protect them and something else about using a insecticide or antifungal wash but again no real firm advice, any help or information anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated id hate to think I've killed this tree due to a stupid split second mistake and an idiot who clearly shouldn't be trimming trees.

 

I've attached a picture for reference of before and after

[Ramprat]

Thanks for all the replies

 

3 hours ago, maybelateron said:

Sorry to say it, but this is the classic example of why not to fall for the knocking on doors brigade. If they were doing the job properly in the first place they would have enough work on, via good reputation, such that they don't need to knock on doors.

Yeah I'm usually very good and never use door step trade but I was having a bad day health wise and was caught of guard and another company had be working on the trees on the communal park opposite earlier in the week and I incorrectly thought it was the same people as they said they were only offering there services as they were doing work nearby sadly i was wrong.

 

3 hours ago, Stubby said:

All brash to be left on site I see....

Actually that's the only good outcome 😆 they wanted to take it but I made them leave it as we have a log burner so ill chop and season it for next year, there's some nice bits in there so I guess they were thinking they could either use it or sell it, now that I think about it its probably the reason they chopped so much off 🤬🤬

 

3 hours ago, Stere said:

Habitat pile 🙂

 

Can't see from pic why it needed trimming at all as how was top blocking path?

Ha, yeah the hedgehogs will love it.

 

The top was fine they were only ment to be thinning the top out as there was lots of small growth blocking light the rest of the tree lower down, the main issue was lower down on the side opposite the view in the photo as there were lots of smaller lower branches that were hanging over the path but it only needed cutting back and thinning.

 

In the past i would have done it myself, i did our trees in the back garden when we moved in and they are going strong but my health has got very bad over the last 2 years and so lots of stuff i used to attempt myself im now having to get people in and on this occasion I f***** up guess i'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and see if I get any growth come spring otherwise I might have to consider what Will C suggested and replace it, it will just be a shame as it was a fantastic producer and we used to be able to collect enough for the neighbours and have plenty left over to make jams and other things, ive got two big jars of cherries from spring sat flavouring vodka for Christmas under my stairs 😁

 

Appreciate the Frank advice, if anyone does think of anything else I could do to give it a fighting chance or what signs i should watch out for that might show its picked up a disease then please let me know.

 

Thanks

[Dan Maynard]

I sometimes say "I don't know who did that but I know how long his ladder was"

We wouldn't usually do anything like burning or antifungal on the cuts. The most important thing is location of the cut to make best use of the trees natural response to branch loss. Looks like there is some scope for pruning off stubs, and you might be able to improve the shape a bit.

It probably won't die, it is most likely to just sprout back with lots of vertical growth that looks unnnatural, which you then can try to prune into shape over a few years. Doing better cuts now will improve this so I would suggest getting someone who knows what they are doing to tidy it up.

Alternative is to finish it off and start again. I usually think it's best not to rush decisions with trees though, see how it goes. Worst case fell it in a few years if it's no good.

[Paddy1000111]

It seems that antifungal/arbrex isn't the cure-all people made it out to be. If you look at fruit tree pruning from a professional/biological standpoint it makes things worse. When you put a product like arbrex on a cut it stops the tree from naturally healing, fruit trees also like to split off into two smaller branches and it also stops that. What tends to happen in my experience is the arbrex peels off over the years and leaves deadwood exposed that water gets into and it rots so definitely avoid it. Sadly, if it is going to get infected then it will have already been infected by the door knockers tools as I can't imagine their biosecurity is any better than their pruning. 

 

I personally wouldn't do what some have suggested and take any more off. Branches are like a trees fat reserves and the more you take off the harder it is for the tree to recover after its dormant period so don't stress it any more. What I would do though is make proper pruning cuts as those 6"-8" stubs they have left look stupid. The photo below shows where I would make proper pruning cuts, you can just see them in red. There are plenty of guides online of how to make proper pruning cuts and where to make them. There's no excuse for stubs like that. I also marked that bottom branch. If you can, leave it until next year to give this tree a fighting chance, if not then cut it back. 

 

After that I would leave it until spring and see what it does. If it doesn't spring to life then it's time to cut it down and replant. Hopefully it springs to life and you will have a large amount of new growth called watershoots/epicormic growth which are caused by poor pruning and are a natural stress response. This is when you need to get out your secateurs. First you need to decide which ones you are going to keep, I suggest you keep anything horizontally growing and anything growing out towards the left as the tree is rather unbalanced as it is. If you haven't got anything growing horizontally or to the left you can gently tie the new growth and force it to grow in that direction, don't tie tight around the shoot but give it a soft loop to bend the new growth in that direction. Once you have your new future branches cut off any new shoots that have grown or the tree will quickly look messy. This is going to happen for a few years after now but the tree will eventually relax back into it's old growth routine. 

[Ramprat]

17 minutes ago, Paddy1000111 said:

It seems that antifungal/arbrex isn't the cure-all people made it out to be. If you look at fruit tree pruning from a professional/biological standpoint it makes things worse. When you put a product like arbrex on a cut it stops the tree from naturally healing, fruit trees also like to split off into two smaller branches and it also stops that. What tends to happen in my experience is the arbrex peels off over the years and leaves deadwood exposed that water gets into and it rots so definitely avoid it. Sadly, if it is going to get infected then it will have already been infected by the door knockers tools as I can't imagine their biosecurity is any better than their pruning. 

 

I personally wouldn't do what some have suggested and take any more off. Branches are like a trees fat reserves and the more you take off the harder it is for the tree to recover after its dormant period so don't stress it any more. What I would do though is make proper pruning cuts as those 6"-8" stubs they have left look stupid. The photo below shows where I would make proper pruning cuts, you can just see them in red. There are plenty of guides online of how to make proper pruning cuts and where to make them. There's no excuse for stubs like that. I also marked that bottom branch. If you can, leave it until next year to give this tree a fighting chance, if not then cut it back. 

 

After that I would leave it until spring and see what it does. If it doesn't spring to life then it's time to cut it down and replant. Hopefully it springs to life and you will have a large amount of new growth called watershoots/epicormic growth which are caused by poor pruning and are a natural stress response. This is when you need to get out your secateurs. First you need to decide which ones you are going to keep, I suggest you keep anything horizontally growing and anything growing out towards the left as the tree is rather unbalanced as it is. If you haven't got anything growing horizontally or to the left you can gently tie the new growth and force it to grow in that direction, don't tie tight around the shoot but give it a soft loop to bend the new growth in that direction. Once you have your new future branches cut off any new shoots that have grown or the tree will quickly look messy. This is going to happen for a few years after now but the tree will eventually relax back into it's old growth routine. 

Thats fantastic advice, thank you for the info. I'll have a look at making the proper cuts if I'm feeling better at the weekend.

 

Yeah I can leave that lower branch the neighbour on that side is always taking the cherrys that hang over anyway so she doesn't mind.

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed come spring and see what happens, the misses came home from work earlier to discover the mess so I'm in the dog house now for this 🤣 ive been told if it dies i have to pay whatever it costs to get it removed and replaced with a mature replacement so she can have cherries again as soon as possible, guess I'll have to switch to asdas own beer for a while 😆

[peatff]

It'll recover in my experience. I tried to kill one off for years before I eventually gave up and cut it off at the base, it still put suckers up from the roots into the lawn 6 feet away.