Japanese cherry

Japanese cherry: how do you recognise it?

Habit

Tree of 5–10 m with a crown about 7 m wide; vase-shaped with upswept branches in ‘Kanzan’, broad, columnar or weeping in other varieties.

Leaves

Alternate, oval with a long pointed tip, 8–15 cm; the teeth end in fine bristle tips. Glands on the leaf stalk; young leaves often bronze.

Bark

Glossy red-brown with horizontal lenticels; often a swelling where the tree was grafted.

Flowers

Pink or white, often double flowers in April (e.g. ‘Kanzan’).

Fruit

Usually no fruit.

Difference from wild cherry

Wild cherry has coarsely toothed leaves without bristle tips, single white flowers, and cherries.

Flowering: April–May · Harvest and fruit: April–May · Pruning: May–July

Identify by feature: White blossom · Pink blossom

Looks like it, but isn’t

• Wild cherry Prunus avium: coarsely toothed leaf without bristle tips, single white flowers, and cherries. Difference from wild cherry

Why grow it?

• Exuberant blossom in April: one of the high points of the gardening year.
• At 5–10 m it stays small enough for an ordinary garden or a street.
• Lovely in every season: bronze young leaves, blossom, glossy red-brown bark and autumn colour.
• There is a form for every spot: columnar, spreading or weeping.

Japanese cherry: where does it grow best?

• Full sun: that is where it flowers best.
• Any free-draining garden soil; it doesn’t like waterlogging.
• Allow for 5–10 m in height and about 7 m in width. For a narrow spot there is the columnar ‘Amanogawa’.
• An open spot in a lawn or front garden, where the blossom can be seen, suits it best.

Light

Full sun

Legal basis

Any garden soil

Moisture

Normal

Size

8 m tall, 7 m wide

Hardiness

Throughout Belgium, no protection needed

Goes well with

• Japanese maple: Fine leaves and fiery autumn colour: together a Japanese feel in a small garden.
• Lesser periwinkle: An evergreen ground cover with blue flowers in April, just beneath the blossom.
• Witch hazel: Flowers in midwinter, when the cherry is bare: that gives you flowers from January to April.
• Spring bulbs: Daffodils, grape hyacinths and glory-of-the-snow under the crown flower just before or with the blossom.

Japanese cherry: when and how to plant it?

1. Plant from November to March when the ground isn’t frozen; container trees can go in later, but not in drought.
2. Don’t plant deeper than in the nursery: the graft union must stay above the soil.
3. Stake a young tree and secure it with a tie that won’t cut into the bark.
4. Water after planting and during dry spells in the first two summers.

Care

Watering

In dry spells for the first two years; after that only in long, dry summers.

Feeding

A layer of compost in spring is enough.

Suckers

Remove shoots that come up below the graft union or from the roots: that is the rootstock, which would otherwise take over.

Tree base

Keep the ground around the trunk of a young tree free of grass: it competes for water.

Tip: Want an ornamental cherry that also feeds bees? Choose a single-flowered variety such as the white ‘Tai Haku’, or plant a native wild cherry. For a narrow garden the columnar ‘Amanogawa’ is ideal.

Japanese cherry: when to prune it?

Pruning months: May–July.

When: After flowering, in late spring or summer, in dry weather.

How:

• Prune little: only remove dead, diseased, crossing or awkward branches, just outside the branch collar.
• Remove shoots that come up below the graft union or from the roots: that is the rootstock.

Caution: Don’t prune in autumn or winter: saw cuts then invite silver leaf and gummosis.

Pruning: when and how · Pruning calendar and basic rules

Propagation

Grafting

Japanese cherries are grafted or budded onto a rootstock, usually wild cherry; that is a job for the nursery. They don’t come true from seed.

Japanese cherry: how does it get through the winter?

Hardy throughout Belgium: no protection needed.

• Fully hardy; late frost can damage the blossom, though.
• Leave it alone in winter: pruning at this time invites silver leaf and gummosis.

Diseases and pests

• Blossom wilt: Flowers and twigs wither soon after flowering and hang on, brown. Cut them out in dry weather, back into healthy wood.
• Silver leaf and gummosis: Silvery leaves, dying branches or oozing gum. Only prune in summer, and cut out affected branches.
• Black cherry aphid: Black aphids make the tips of young shoots curl. Ladybirds usually deal with them.
• Shot hole: Small brown spots that drop out, leaving the leaf full of holes. Clear up fallen leaves.

Through the year

• January: Planting season in mild weather; don’t prune.
• March: Last month for planting bare-root trees.
• April: Flowering; cut off flower clusters withered by blossom wilt.
• May: Prune after flowering, in dry weather; remove suckers.
• June: Pruning still possible; watch for black cherry aphid on the tips.
• July: Last month for pruning; water young trees in dry spells.
• October: Autumn colour, yellow to orange.
• November: Planting season starts.

What can you use it for?

Garden and landscape

Blossom tree for streets and front gardens.

Food and drink

In Japan the blossoms are salted and drunk as a tea.

For wildlife

Double flowers provide hardly any nectar or pollen: for bees, choose a single-flowered cherry.

Edible and useful

Blossom (April–May)

Pick the blossom of the pink, double-flowered varieties (such as ‘Kanzan’) in April and early May, when the flowers are half to fully open. In Japan it is salted and pickled (sakura-zuke), for tea, in rice or on cakes.

Storing

Salted and dried blossom keeps for a year in a closed jar with a little extra salt, somewhere cool and dark.

Caution: Only use blossom from trees that are not sprayed; ornamental cherries from a nursery or along the street are sometimes treated. Cherry leaves, bark and stones contain cyanogenic compounds: eat only the blossom, in moderation. Salted blossom is very salty; rinse it briefly before use. Never eat anything you have not identified with certainty.

Eating and using is at your own risk: see the terms of use.

Recipes

• Salted cherry blossom (sakura-zuke) (Other · 1 small jar · 30 min + 4 days)
• Cherry-blossom tea (sakurayu) (Tea · 1 cup · 5 min)
• Cherry blossom syrup (Syrup · ± 600 ml · 20 min + 24 hrs steeping)
• Cherry blossom jelly (sakura kanten) (Jelly · 4 glasses or small moulds · 20 min + 1½ hrs setting)

Did you know?

• A classic in streets and front gardens; in Japan the cherry blossom (hanami) is celebrated exuberantly.
• In Japan the blossoms are salted and drunk as a tea.
• In 1912 the city of Tokyo gave more than 3000 Japanese cherry trees to Washington; their flowering is now celebrated there every year.
• In 1912 Tokyo gave more than 3,000 Japanese cherry trees to Washington; their blossom is now celebrated there every spring with a large festival.
• The white cherry ‘Taihaku’ had been lost in Japan. The Briton Collingwood Ingram found it again in an English garden and sent grafting material back to Japan.