Cherry trees, generally speaking, do not respond well to hard pruning.
The advice from C.Hogg is sensible, combinng this with some good
quality, well-rotted, mulch may revive the tree. Rarely does hard
pruning revitalise a tree. Such pruning may cause a flush of growth,
which is, basically, the tree endeavouring to recover from the huge
shock of its deprivation.If one is fond of a tree, and the tree is not
disease ridden, it is worth the effort to nurture the tree.
klkbloke wrote:
Chris Hogg wrote:

On 9 Sep 2006 02:46:36 -0700, "klkbloke"
wrote:

Hi All,

We have a cherry tree in our front garden which is a bit dead! Probably
half of top of the tree is dead with no foliage. It's about as tall as
our house and I'd really like to be able to bring it back to life.

Has this tree reached the end? Would pruning it heavily help? Is so,
when and how?


Cheers,

Martin.

It could well be suffering from silver leaf disease, a fungal
infection common in cherries and other prunus species and which causes
dieback of shoots and branches and eventually kills the tree. The
leaves take on a silvery appearance, as the name implies. Spores enter
through open wounds, especially if the tree has been pruned while
dormant in winter. Infected branches show a brown or purplish stain in
their centres, visible when cut through. There's not usually much hope
of saving them. You can try cutting out the infected wood, but you
have to make sure to cut at least 15 cm below the lowest point of
infection, i.e. of brown staining. Make sure you dispose of all the
dead stuff, as leaving it lying around the garden is a sure way of
getting re-infection or spreading it to other cherries in the area.
IIRC it used to be a notifiable disease, as it could be devastating to
commercial cherry and plum orchards.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

Morning All,

Thanks for the prompt and informative responses. As suspected it sounds
like the tree needs to be removed which is a shame.

No signs of any diseases but I'll keep an eye out when I take the tree
down. We'll plant something in it's place but I think that's something
for next year.

Cheers.