Black Cherry Tree Sapling
Black cherry rum cherry wild cherry.
Black cherry tree sapling. Conventional black cherry tree plantations are set out in contiguous tree rows spaced far enough apart to provide room for trees to mature and give access for planting pruning and harvest equipment. It is a moderately long lived tree with ages of up to 258 years known. I have one right smack in front of one of the doors to the red barn when i built the barn in 1983 the tree was just a little sapling and i didn t have the heart to cut it down and now it is 50 tall and 2 in diameter. It is a fast grower.
Department of agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 9 they reach up to 80 feet tall putting. Its bark is broken and dark grey to black in appearance and looks to some like burnt potato chips. Locate black cherry seedlings a minimum of 8 feet away from other trees and vegetation. Black cherry is a valuable tree for lumber and as an ornamental shade tree.
Use a balanced fertilizer. Unlike most cherry trees black cherries produce leaves before the white flowers appear. Black cherry rarely occurs in the canopy of late successional deciduous forests but buried seeds are present and an abundance of small seedlings is common in the understory. Black cherries naturally prune themselves when planted 8 feet away from other trees.
The black cherry tree flowers profusely with elongated almost bottle brush shaped fragrant flower clusters in the spring. This tough durable native plant. It can be messy in some yards. This spacing allows the tree to grow straight and tall.
Black cherry tree plantations. Trees are hardy fast growing and long lived. Black cherry also reproduces by stump sprouts following cutting or fire and sprouting frequency remains high for trees up to about 60 years of age. Leaves are oval with thinly pointed tips.
The seedlings will vary somewhat from their parent trees but should still be genetically capable of growing faster and straighter than common black cherry seedlings. The superior seedlings are grown from the seeds of these trees. Grows in moist rich soils as well as light sandy soil. Leaves are dark green and turn yellow in autumn.
Feed the black cherry tree seedling when it is about 4 to 6 inches tall to stimulate new growth. It can take up to 50 years before black cherry trees can be harvested for timber or veneer.