Early this year, I was at one of the warehouse-type discount stores, and
saw some snow fountain cherry trees in 20-gallon containers for a very good
price. I figured "Why not?", because I wanted to put some trees in a park
strip anyway.

Well, they did quite well for the first 3 or 4 months. But last month,
one declined and died. Now, the other two are following the same pattern.
Here's what's going on:

The actual tree trunks (to which they've attached the cherry grafts) are
alive and thriving, while the actual cherry grafts are slowly drying up,
going brown, and dying. The actual trunks are putting out stems and leaves
quite happily - but they aren't, of course, cherry stems! I've made sure
that the watering is appropriate, but because the trunks are doing so well,
I'm a bit baffled.

Does this sort of thing mean that I got bad trees from the start, or are
there environmental/care-related factors that would cause the graft to die
while not the trunk?

steve