Cherry is a cold-resistant tree, but it still requires care. As the saying goes, you need to prepare a sleigh in the summer, so you need to properly care for the cherries in the fall in order to get a rich harvest during the season.
Feeding and fertilizer
One of the main questions gardeners ask themselves concerns feeding. How and what to feed your favorite tree so that it survives the winter well? Although it seems that in the fall care is no longer as required as, for example, during the flowering period, this is not so. It is at this time that prevention against diseases and most insects and pests is most effective. After the first frost or first snow, you need to treat the tree with a five percent solution of nitrogen fertilizer called urea. This will help destroy fungi and parasites. The best fertilizers for cherries are organic ones, such as compost or manure. Sawdust may also work. The main thing is that the fertilizing does not contain nitrogen: this can cause a decrease in the frost resistance of the tree.
Cleaning the trunk circle
In the fall, you need to remove weeds around the trunk, because this can affect the yield of the tree. You can also lay mulch under the tree in advance, but in such a way that it does not cover the trunk to prevent rotting. This will help avoid overgrowing of the tree trunk circle. The trunk circle is the radius of the tree crown; there is no need to strip it wider.
Digging
It is important for a tree to dig up the soil around the trunk in the fall, but this must be done carefully and not dig deeper than fifteen centimeters, so as not to damage the roots. You need to loosen along a diameter equal to the crown - on average, this is how the cherry root system grows. After loosening, it is necessary to properly water the roots, but this must also be done carefully, so as not to overdo it. This procedure will allow moisture to penetrate deep into the roots so that the soil does not freeze as quickly as dry soil. For each tree, even a small one, you need to pour at least two liters of water, which should be warmer in temperature than the air temperature.
Care
After the leaves fall, it is important to clear the tree of dry twigs to prevent disease. It is also necessary to cover up the cracks on the trunk and remove fallen leaves and fruits lying around the tree.
Whitewashing and insulation
It is important to insulate young trees, because the climate in most of the country is unpredictable. To avoid unpleasant surprises, the following measures must be taken: cherry trunks up to four years old must be wrapped in spruce branches, newspapers or a bag. The trunks of older cherries need to be whitened to protect them from pests and rodents.
Here are some simple tips for protecting cherries in winter. If you use them correctly, the tree will survive the winter and in the coming season will delight you with a large number of flowers and, of course, fruits.
I came across this site by accident. What an article it is, it’s a gem! The author writes “the best fertilizer for cherries is manure” and then, “but the fertilizer should not contain nitrogen.” Manure, for the author’s information, is actually a nitrogen fertilizer.