Labor of Love
Gardening

If you plant a cherry tree, you might want to know . . .

If you plant a cherry tree the birds will come. The robins love my cherry tree. One year a group of cedar waxwings came and perched on a branch passing cherries to each other. And little birds that I haven’t identified come.

I don’t mind sharing some of the cherries—but not all. So I have started the practice of placing fake owls in the tree, moving them around every couple days. It helps.

The Cherry Tree

If you place a pretty owl covered in real feathers in the tree, it might be attacked. I was dismayed to see feathers torn off and a big bite taken out of the styrofoam core of the owl. A squirrel?Owl

If you pick the good cherries quickly you may have enough for a pie, and then extra to put in the freezer.

Cherries

If the springtime is very wet it may affect the cherries. The cherries may develop brown rot and then you must strip all the moldy cherries from the tree.

If the black aphids come and begin to munch on the new leaves of the tree, spray the tree with soapy water.

If the Japanese beetles come you might have to work hard to save the tree. Japanese Beetle

In the last couple years they have eaten half the leaves on my tree. I started picking them off and dropping them in soapy water, but it wasn’t enough. I placed a lure with pheromes that bagged 100s of these pests. Finally I resorted to treating the ground to get rid of the grubs that emerge from the soil in July as beetles.

My daughter is amused by the effort I put in to harvesting cherries from the tree that I planted many years ago.

If you like cherries as much as I do the effort may be worth it.

The prompt for the community of writers at Five Minute Friday is: IF  I hope you will visit the link-up and see how others were inspired by this little word.

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Carol is a follower of Jesus and a wife, mom & grandma. She worked for many years as a childbirth nurse and prenatal educator. She recently retired from clinical work. She has written articles for nursing journals and devotionals. Her novel, Aliisa's Letter, was published in 2010 and she is currently working on another project.

6 Comments on “If you plant a cherry tree, you might want to know . . .

  1. This made me think of “If you give a mouse a cookie”!
    I don’t have a cherry tree, but I have blueberry bushes, that have been ravaged by birds and a few random ailments at times.
    Thanks for sharing the bits of advice you’ve picked up over the years!

  2. I love this Carol! I’m battling a chipmunk who somehow can get INSIDE my birdfeeder and escape with bulging cheeks! Nature is so entertaining! It’s amazing how God has created it all for us to enjoy!

    1. It is fascinating to watch and learn. I’m still working on the beetle problem. there are less this year, so I have
      gone back to picking them off the cherry tree and raspberry bushes, dropping them in soapy water.

  3. Carol, This is such a fun post. I enjoyed how you shared the information laced with a bit of humor, and the pictures are perfect. It’s a great metaphor of life.

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