Rob wrote:
I bought a cherry tree (not the fruit kind) in a supermarket a few
months ago, and plonked it in my small yard against a fence by lifting a
couple of the block paving stones. It's not exactly shaded, but only
gets about three hours of direct sun a day.

It seems to have taken fine, with lots of leaves on the two 'side'
branches. The problem is the central branch which seems to have gone out
of control. It's just keeps reaching for the sky, and has probably grown
4 inches in the past week. There's lots of little branch and leaf
activity, but it's all hanging off a very spindly centre branch. I've
supported this centre branch by tying it to a bamboo cane, but now it's
gone beyond the 5 foot cane on its spindly ascent, and is lops over to
one side. The other branches are about 2 feet below the the tip, on a
tree that's about 6 feet high.

I looked on the RHS web site, and they seem to say 'don't prune the
centre branch'.

Any ideas please? I am so obviously not a gardener, but i've quite taken
to this creation of mine.

Thanks, Rob

Many thanks for the replies. Seems I hadn't thought this through ;-)

Tree type - I really don't know - it was from Aldi for a fiver, and I've
thrown the label away. I'm pretty sure it just said 'cherry tree' with a
picture of a tree with that pink blossom. It had a black tiny beetle
infestation early on, accompanied by ants. I saw that off with systemic
insecticide and greased paper around the trunk.

Placement - it gets worse. It's about a 2 feet from a substantial 10
foot wall/bank down the to the house below. My plan was to just keep it
at about 7/8 feet, with a misplaced notion that the roots wouldn't do
anything spectacular. Thing is, there are lots of trees along the
boundary line of other houses. Trees without substantial route systems I
suspect.

Looks like an uprooting is in order? Some pics:

http://patchoulian.googlepages.com/tree

On this showing a good job I don't have children. Or pets. Or clothes
that need ironing. Etc.

Rob