Need some advice regarding a cherry tree

[Oenone575]

Hello,

About five years ago I bought a cherry tree to grow in my garden. Since then I have noticed two things about which I would appreciate any advice that anyone can offer.

Firstly the tree has barely grown any bigger the whole time I've had it. It's not huge, probably around 2 metres tall with just a few main branches.

Secondly, the number of flowers (and cherries) that grow on it seems to be quite low. Large sections of the branches don't bear any blossom at all.

I'm finding (if I can beat the birds and squirrels) that I only get around 30-40 cherries each year. I wasn't expecting to be able to live off the fruit of the tree but it would be nice to get more than the equivalent of a single punnet from Tesco each year. Can anyone suggest what I can do to increase the size and productivity of my tree?

I haven't pruned or cut back the tree at all, for lack of knowledge about what I should do.

Here are a couple of pictures I took yesterday, in case they're useful. You can see in these that two of the three branches (and particularly the one on the right) are mostly bare.

Thanks in advance

 

[Chuck]

Cherry trees require a minimum of 6 hours of direct sunlight. Could this be a factor?

 

[Oenone575]

Hi Chuck, thanks very much for the suggestion.

The tree is at the bottom of a south-facing garden with no obstructions around it, so it should be getting at least six hours of sunshine (assume we actually get any sunshine here in the UK, not always guaranteed!)

 

[Chuck]

Hi Chuck, thanks very much for the suggestion.

The tree is at the bottom of a south-facing garden with no obstructions around it, so it should be getting at least six hours of sunshine (assume we actually get any sunshine here in the UK, not always guaranteed!)

Could you take a picture of the base of the tree? It could be planted too deep which can cause slow growth. Also, what are you fertilizing with?

 

[Oenone575]

Yes of course, here you go.

 

[Chuck]

Yes of course, here you go. View attachment 95589
View attachment 95590

It is planted properly so that leaves the environment and nutrition as the only other reasons for unsubstantial growth except if the tree had an encircling root when planted The average growth for a cherry tree is about a foot per year.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Yeah this would be frustrating. Can you buy and plant a second cherry within 2 meters of this one? Either they'll grow into each other and intermingle, current commercial thinking is this a very good thing for fruit, or the new one will displace the runt and you can give that the ax without losing cherries.