Cherry tree on strike? or at death's door?

Hi, I’m hoping someone can advise on whether my cherry tree is dying or just having a bad year.

I don’t know the specific species, as it was planted before we bought the house, 19 years ago, but it has purple leaves and pink blossom. At least, that is what it had every previous year, but this year it seems to be on strike. As you can see from the photos, it did start to have buds for blossom (if buds is the right term), but they just stopped growing weeks ago and none of them have grown beyond a couple of millimetres. There is no sign of any leaves appearing whatsoever. We are in Hertfordshire, and I'm pretty sure it should have leafed by now.

It is pruned each winter to keep it to a reasonable size (about 4 m high). And before anyone says, I have already found out from my reading that this is a bad time to prune it as it risks getting silver leaf fungus, so if it survives, I'll change my pruning. However, I don’t think this is the cause of my tree going on strike. I read that silver leaf fungus causes a dark stain in the centre of a branch, so I sawed off a reasonably large branch to check this and as the photo shows, there is no stain at all.

As the photos also show, there is a small amount of new twig growth, so I am fairly sure it is not dead, at least not quite, or at least it was alive until fairly recently (a couple of months ago).

 

Hi, Check out my post, I have just noticed yours.
Gav

 

I am going to dig the earth up around it and put some blood and bone done. Not sure what more I can do.

 

Gavin

Yours looks like it has a better chance of recovery than mine, which has not a single blossom that got bigger than 2mm and not a single leaf. I'd have thought it is definitely worth you trying to coax it back to health. Mine might be a gonner.

I don't think harsh weather can explain my tree. I have a Magnolia near it, which has always struggled, but this spring it had twice as many flowers as it has ever had before, which wouldn't suggest a harsh winter/spring. And neighbours' cherries are thriving. So I think it must be disease or just old age.

 

Cherries are a relatively short lived tree so it could have just reached the end of it's life.

 

Thanks. I did wonder if that's it. It is certainly 20 years old and could be considerably older. Our house was built in 1970, so it could be up to 45 years old.

 

I'm tending to think it's basically dead and the new growth is just from the sap that was within the stems.
Think it's down to a root problem, or at least, nothing is coming up from the roots.

 

I have two pear trees and a apple close by (within 5m) and they look really good, had full blossom and growth.

 

Root problems does not necessarily mean it affects other trees, I'm not talking honey fungus, just that the roots have given up the ghost for one reason or another.

 

yes, I understand.

 

Thanks. Looks like I need to start thinking about chopping it down and replacing it.

Actually, in my case it might be honey fungus. I do seem to remember there was an outcrop of mushrooms at the base a year or two ago. I'll investigate for the white fungus.

 

Hi, Did you chop the cherry?
Gavin

 

I did. The tree surgeon could not see any obvious explanation, even when he ground down to the roots. But it was definitely an ex-tree.