If I could point to an origin for my love of gardening, it would be my admiration for a series of trees around the main entry at my college, Furman University. In the ugliest part of February, a circle of trees around the entry fountain were covered in gorgeous, ruffled pink blooms. I fell in love without knowing their identify. Now I know that they were flowering cherry trees, Prunus serrulata ‘Kwanzan.”
Flowering cherries are short, both in stature and life-span. They may reach up to 25 feet tall, and usually live 20 years or less. Site them in full sun. Trees prefer moist soil but will not tolerate a boggy situation.
Higan Cherry, Prunus subhirtella, is taller, reaching to 40 feet. They are more heat and cold tolerant than the serrulatas.
Prunus mume, Flowering Apricot, is easily confused with the cherries. It blooms earlier, in late January. The cultivar ‘Peggy Clarke’ is widely available. An elementary school nearby has a row of these along the entrance drive. In bloom, their frothy pink blooms look like a row of giant spun-sugar cotton candy-on-a-stick. All the Prunus members have prominent horizontal marks on their trunks, called lenticels.
Ornamental cherries are prone to a long list of problems: blights, viruses, insects, leaf spots, and mildews. They are so beautiful that we ignore their issues.
