pruning Cherry Trees

[happy gardner]

Hello All This is my 1st posting on here Can anyone help? my mum has asked if we could prune her cherry tree It is a flowering one about 15 ft tall it has 2 central vertical branches with many suckers coming from the main trunk How much should be cut off? also when should it be pruned? Hoping someone can help us Thank you Lorraine

[Redfox]

Hi and welcome
as to your flowering cherry tree, the best time to prune I believe is in the growing season, clear any dead, decayed or deceased branches, and clear any that are growing inwards. Hope this helps.
Jane

[farmer jon]

yes, cherry trees both fruiting & ornamental are only to be pruned during the growing season. if pruned during the dormant season then it exposes them greatly to a disease known as silverleaf. this shows itself as reduced vigour & a silver cast to the undersides of leaves, as it spreads it causes dieback & eventually the death of the whole tree.
it is also spread by so called tree surgeons who not only prune at the wrong time , but do not sterilise their saws between trees. any prunus species are susceptible.

[happy gardner]

Hello thanks for the info thank goodness we didnt do it yesterday

[Johnboy]

Hi Happy Gardener,
Welcome to the forum.
I note in your posting that you say suckers from the trunk but suckers come from the ground and I am wondering if the Cherry Tree in an Amanogawa which is a fastiagated variety which means the branches grow skywards and not out like a normal tree. This variety in its young years tends to have many branches above the grafting point and my tree is now over forty years old and is about 20 ft but I have trimmed all the branches up to around 5ft from the ground and only trim lightly where the tree gets mingled with other vegetation and I feel that to prune to reduce height would in a way spoil the tree but if this has to be done I would cut it at the height you want it straight across. This is best done next year when the years growth has finished but the leaves are still green.
JB.

[FelixLeiter]

Most cherries are best left unpruned, sour cherries especially. I am assuming that this one is an ornamental flowering cherry, in which case the same applies. I often see badly pruned flowering cherries which are very ugly. Mostly they are pruned to keep them in bounds once their owners have found that they have quickly outgrown their allotted space, but there are many which are pruned for no discernible reason or because they have "got too tall", which, on reflection, a tree never can be. Branches are then shortened severely resulting in a network of stumps, few of which throw new growth. These die back and attract disease, hastening the tree's death.
I suggest removing sucker growth (if it genuinely is sucker growth; that is, shoots emerging from the rootstock), removing dead wood and crossing branches and nothing more. For sure do this in summer, to avoid silverleaf.