Can a cherry tree survive in North Carolina clay?

September 23, 2009 7:31 PM

New tree planted in clay with poor drainage. Can it / should it be saved?

The tree is a young Yoshino Cherry Tree, trunk diameter of about 1.5 inches. I planted it a full sun area in the yard, and broke up the dirt to about twice the diameter of the root ball as directed. It's been in the ground for about 3 weeks.

Now every time it rains, more leaves turn yellow and drop off. At this point it's probably lost 15-20% of its foliage, but there's not much new growth either. I assume this is because of the soil's high clay content and poor drainage. Can I do anything to save the tree? Dig it up, aerate, and replant? Should I just wait and see if it makes it, possibly watching it die a slow death? What's the prognosis? I live in SE North Carolina, which is fairly damp.

posted by reverend cuttle to home & garden (8 comments total)

Gypsum helps break up and drain clay soils.
posted by hortense at 7:49 PM on September 23

In the area where I grew up, the soil was made of such heavy clay that we had to drill holes down through the hardpan using a truck-mounted well rig if we wanted the trees to live. You could try a scaled down version of that using a post hole digger and a much bigger hole. Also, it's possible the tree is having a hard time adjusting from the sunlight conditions at the nursery to what it has now: you can rig up a little temporary shade tent for it with a tarp or shadecloth and some bamboo poles.

Alternatively, your cherry will adapt nicely to growing in a container filled with potting soil. Its canopy will not reach full size of course, but it will attain a good sized trunk and bloom every spring.
posted by jamaro at 8:04 PM on September 23

Give it some time to acclimate. Three weeks isn't that much time for a developed tree. Summer isn't the best time for planting since the fine root hairs get shocked by the heat and have difficulty absorbing moisture and nutrients. It would probably lose leaves even if your soil was more dirt-like. You might not see much growth until next spring. The gypsum suggestion is a good one, and clay soils actually have a high concentration of nutrients that plants can extract better once they've loosened.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:17 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]

It's very normal for trees to have a hard time after being transplanted. It may or may not be the clay. I have heavy clay here and the cherries love it. I'm a thousand miles north of you and they have a bigger problem with drought than rain.

If you want you can wait until the tree is dormant in the winter, remove it from the hole, enlarge the hole and fill it with non-clay dirt, then replace the tree. Also make sure to break up the edges of the hole. With clay it is too easy to make an impermeable cavilty.
posted by unSane at 8:20 PM on September 23

Cherries very commonly get fungal leaf problems that defoliate them later in the season. Most often in the SE it's going to be Blumeriella jaapii, though it could be something else. Do the leaves have lots of spots on them when they're dropping?
If it's a planting problem it would be because it's either too deeply planted, or there is a drainage problem due to a distinct soil interface between different-textured soils. Either of those could be rectified if the tree hasn't declined too much or contracted a root rot fungus from saturated soils. If it's too deep, raise it up and replant it using these guidelines. If it's the soil, dig it up, remove the root ball soil (mostly, you don't have to get anal) and bare-root plant it.
Before you go digging it up, however, check out the leaves. You can take a sample by cutting a twig (look at the twig for little lesions, as well as the leaf stem) with symptomatic parts, and taking it in to the NCSU extension for free diagnosis.
posted by Red Loop at 8:21 PM on September 23

Whoops, format fail there. Here are some very good guidelines for tree planting.
posted by Red Loop at 3:10 AM on September 24

I've just planted a cherry in heavy clay myself (about two weeks ago). Like you, I've been seeing leaves yellowing and falling off. The leaves also go a bit limp in the daytime warmth, but perk up overnight.

I think it's just the tree getting used to the new conditions (moisture, wind, sun). Your tree presumably still has the compost it came in around the roots, so at the moment it's effectively still living in the pot. It takes quite a long time for the roots to spread out into the surrounding soil. I uprooted an apple tree I planted three years ago, and the roots hadn't gone out more than a couple of inches into the clay in that time, despite breaking up the soil and adding a lot of organic material. Provided you haven't damaged the roots, and as long as the soil doesn't dry out or get seriously waterlogged, I think you'll be ok.

Moving a tree usually results in a certain amount of shock. My apple tree lost all but two of its apples when I moved it, with fruit attached, on the hottest day of summer. But it's looking healthy again now and I fully expect it to be fruiting copiously again next year.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 4:07 AM on September 24

Without knowing what your soil is like, I'd choose organic matter over gypsum. Gypsum can have some issues with dissolved salts and high calcium soils, so unless you've had a soil test I'd avoid gypsum. Can't really go wrong with organic matter though.
posted by electroboy at 6:35 AM on September 24