Cherry tree....blossom doesn't want to come out

[miniveg]

Hi

I have a cherry tree (sunburst), which was ok last year, but this year I'm a bit worried about it. The blossom looks as though it's about to burst open any day now, which is great, apart from the fact that it's looked that way for the past few weeks. Not 1 bit of blossom has opened or leaf grown - it just looks as though it's stuck in March!

I'm on the south coast so we don't get much frost, and I can't think of any other trauma that might have occured to stop it's growing like this.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[FB.]

It ought to have flowered by now. Is the tree dead?
Have you clipped off the end on an insignificant branch (or scraped off a piece of bark on an unimportant branch), to see if the wood is soft, moist and with a greenish layer under the bark?
Ot you could simply bend an unimportant twig; a live twig will bend and be springy, a dead twig will snap.

[rana]

Don't know if it is a coincidence but I am also on the S. coast and my cherry tree failed to flower this year. It then put on loads of leaf and was growing fine, so to teach it a lesson I chopped it back (secatuers, loppers and saw) by two thirds. I am hoping this will shock it into behaving more ageeably next spring.