Growing a cherry tree in poorly drained soil

[richardj]

Hi all,

First time grower here. I was wanting to plant a cherry tree (sunburst, morello or stella), but my garden has really poorly draining soil. The ultimate height/spread of the trees I was looking at at the local garden centre are about 6m x 6m, which is ideal for the size of my garden, but I imagine this would come with a sizeable root structure too.

Would greatly appreciate any advice on whether it would be possible for me to plant either of those trees in my garden in a raised bed, giving the tree some topsoil and mulch to establish itself so that it can expand into the existing soil once it's established, or would there be a way for me to even plant it in the soil directly?

My garden gets very wet in the centre, with puddles persisting after heavy rainfall for the best part of a day or more, and remains wet and squelchy throughout any wet seasons. Seems like there's a lot of clay in the soil, because it really dries out and cracks in an arid summer.

Cheers,

Richard

[Bohobumble]

Mine is also heavy clay, but it's what I know so you do find ways to work with it rather than against it. There's some great tips on growing on and improving clay soil here: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=620

Maybe try the growing on a mound idea?

[Kristen]

My garden gets very wet in the centre, with puddles persisting after heavy rainfall for the best part of a day or more,

Worth investigating the cause.

Is it a new build? (possibility of builder's rubble buried in the garden and soil structure ruined during the build)

Or previously farmland@ (possibility of a plough pan)

Does it have any slope? If neither of the above then the first thing I would do with poorly draining land is to put some French drains in. Its not that hard to do, but makes the world of difference to heavy soil.

But I would not expect regular clay to fail to drain in a downpour for a day or two, except in very wet seasons.

[shewhoguards]

I have a cherry who gets very wet feet in spring due to a slope. Unfortunately, it's not happy at all - every year it starts off well then goes yellow and loses most of its leaves.

[chrisdb]

Near my house there is a cherry tree (prunus avium I'm sure, and the fruit tastes good, but it's a forestry/street tree rather than one selected for fruiting) next to a stream that runs through the town. Ground level must be less than 1m above the water of the stream, but the tree seems completely happy. I'm always surprised, since it goes against what I've read about cherry trees not liking wet feet. I suppose it's possible that the ground right next to the water isn't that wet, but it would be odd if that were true.

[Kristen]

We had a really wet summer here a few years ago. There was standing water on an area of the lawn where I've never seen it before. It went away, but was probably there close on a week, and that happened a few times during that summer. [ornamental] Cherry tree in that area which was fairly mature - 15-20 years old maybe? was dead by the end of the summer

Dunno if the two were related, but the Cherry had flowered well and looked healthy in previous years.