Love Tree's Long Awaited Update!

Dear Everyone,

This a very late update, but I will do my best to convey everything that has happened with our lovely Tree. Some of the news may be shocking to some of you.

Last post updated ended on Love Tree losing it's leaves in the beginning of Winter 2012. Love only had two leaves left by December. Eventually, love tree lost all of it's leaves that winter. We were not sure if that was normal or not for a young tree. Love tree was only about 8 months old from the day we planted it.

However, we still made sure to keep the soil moist. Ironically, the only picture I took of love tree was after it lost all of it's leaves. Here's a picture of Love Tree Winter 2011:

  

Calvin had given all hope for Love Tree. He thought for sure love tree was dead. Me on the other hand, still made sure to keep Love Tree's Soil moist and that proved to be a great idea. Love Tree was simply doing what a tree does best. Love Tree was wintering.

Love Tree stayed at Calvin's State College, Pa apartment. Love Tree still did not have any leaves when he left college to go home for the summer first week of May. However, suddenly right when we came up to State College to pack up the apartment Love Tree was revived. In about 2 and a half months Love Tree was bursting with life. Love Tree had so many leaves, more than it ever had when it was sprouting. It did not seem like Love Tree grew any taller, but Love Tree certainly had many more leaves. Although, I did not update this blog as often as I should have, we did keep a journal of Love Tree's progress. We recorded Love Tree's height and number of leaves that sprouted about once a week. So we brought Love Tree back home with me in New York. 

Sadly, in New York I did not take care of Love Tree as well as I should have. I admit it, I killed Love Tree. I am really sorry. I was negligent. At first I wanted to place Love Tree in the backyard of my apartment building, where we have a gardening area, but Calvin did not like Love Tree placed there. So I moved Love Tree to the roof, I live on the top floor of a small 4 story building. Love Tree got plenty of sunlight, but too much sunlight, and it had to endure the scorching heat of New York City. The city get's pretty hot in the summer time. When Love Tree's leaves starting drying out I moved it into the apartment. However, in the apartment, I placed it in the living room near the window. Unfortunately, we kept the A/C on a lot during the summer and I think the temperature change and Love Tree being near the A/C killed Love Tree. 

Cherry Trees need to be kept in a semi-shaded areas to thrive. They dry up in intense sunlight areas and do not grow well in sunny areas. It is best to keep cherry blossom trees in the semi-shade. That is where it will grow the best. Do not worry if your seedling loses it's leaves in the winter time. It is just doing what it does best. It is being a Tree. Love Tree grew back it's leaves in summer. But I killed it with the New York summer heat and negligence. I should have kept a better watch of Love Tree. 

I suggest for all who are growing a Tree from seedling, keep careful observation of your tree's first to second year of life. 

Although Love Tree has left us, it was a beautiful experience. I have now graduated from college and am in my first year of graduate school. Love Tree has been in my life from my senior of college to  when I was accepted to graduate school. Although, Love Tree has only been with us for a year and half, a lot has happened during that time. Calvin is now in his last semester of college. Love Tree was a definitely a fun project.  Although, I did not keep up with this blog as often as I have promised and nor did I post as many pictures as I have promised, It was still a lot of fun maintaining the blog. Even though, I did not post often, I would often check the stats of the blog. I am happy and grateful for every single person that ever visited our blog. Not surprisingly, the most popular post is how to grow a cherry blossom tree from seed. 

This year, 2013 I hope to return to Washington, D.C. this year and purchase another cherry blossom tree kit. We will soon begin the journey of "Love Tree 2.0". This time around I will do my best to document this experience better. I hope you guys will stay tuned and join us in our 2nd adventure.

THANK YOU!!!

Love, 

Tina

How to Grow a Cherry Blossom Tree From Seed

Here is a really good guide to growing a cherry tree from seed, I will summarize the information below.


 1. If you are growing a cherry plant from seed, you will probably have to wait 5 to 10 years before the tree blossoms. Depending on the variety of the seed you have, the cherrys may or may not fruit because only self-pollinating cherry trees fruit. Other cherry varieties must be cross-pollinated in order to fruit.

2. This can be an interesting experiment or just a fun thing to do with your loved one, like how me and Calvin have planted our tree. We did it for fun and by caring for the tree together, it has created a wonderful bonding experience for us. It has shown me a surprisingly nurturing side of Calvin and my insistence on careful observation has also spawned this blog.

Overall, it can be a fun project for anyone.

The Steps are Easy.

1. First either collect the pits from cherry's you've eaten at home or order cherry seeds online. Make sure to choose seeds that are not dried out to plant. If the seed looks and feels brittle it is probably dried out. Fresh seeds from cherry fruits should be fine.

2. Plant the seeds 2 inches deep in a soil and perlite mix or a mulch based soil. The soil needs to be loose and moist,so that the roots can grow properly. Dense soil can potentially harm or kill and cherry tree.
   

3a. If you are planting outside, plant each seed about 12 inches away from each other and plant in the fall. The seeds will straitify over winter and sprout in the spring.

3b. If you are planting in a pot, place about 2-4 seeds per pot to insure at least one seed germinates. Place pot in the refrigerator for 4-6 weeks to stimulate stratifying in the winter. Or you can plant the seeds in the fall and place the pot outdoors. After the stratification process in the refrigerator, move your pot to a warm, sunny area, the seed should sprout within a couple of weeks. If you plan on planting it indoors, it does not matter what time of year you plant your seeds, as long as the seeds has been properly stratified, it will sprout. We planted in april, placed in the fridge for about 5 weeks, our seed sprouted in May.

- Make sure the soil is remains moist, but not dripping wet. Water soil as you see fit, once every two weeks perhaps.


* Side Note: We planted love tree in april from a kit that had a perlite mixture, our seed germinated fine. However, we did re-pot love tree into a 8qt pot (much larger than the 10 oz growth chamber provided by the kit. Love tree does seem to have stopped growing, we are not quite sure what is going on. It might just be wintering, we're not sure.) To remedy this situation we have used toothpicks to poke holes in the soil surrounding love tree, hoping to provide some ventilation that way. We are using a pot with a drainage system, so love tree won't be overwatered.

4. Continue caring for you cherry tree and expect to enjoy cherry blossoms or fruits in about 5-10 years. =D

I hope everyone will be sucessful, in their cherry seed planting adventures.

Calvin made a Cherry Tree Planting guide in a microsoft word .doc, that you can download. I will upload that soon.

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Only Two Green Leaves Left!

Love Tree at it's peak had like 12 leaves. I hope that is normal for a 7 Month year old tree. Now Calvin says there are only two green leaves left. I really hope our cherry blossom tree is just shedding leaves for winter and not dying. Calvin says the other leaves are all turning yellow. It has been happening gradually to the leaves since winter's approach.

On the bright side, I've began to look up and see what species of Cherry Blossom Tree we had. I had thought since it is a seed from the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. it would be the same species as the type of Cherry blossom trees they had. However, the Washington D.C. actually has 12 variety of Cherry Blossom Trees imported from Japan. Each unique varient of Cherry Blossom tree blossom are a different time of the year. Some blossom in early winter, late winter, early spring, or late spring. These are the D.C. varieties of Cherry Blossom Trees and may be one of the varieties me and Calvin have:

• "Somei-Yoshino" - Prunus x yedoenis - Flowers emerge before the leaves in early spring and they are fragrant 
• "Ari-ake" - Prunus serrulata - aka Japanese Cherry, Oriental Cherry, or East Asian Cherry. At the end of autumn leaves turn yellow red or crimson. Flowers are produced in the spring.
• "Fugen-zo" - Another variety of Prunus serrulata. Bloom mid-spring to late-spring. Leaves are coppery colored and finely toothed when young and bark is coppery red, glossy, peeling. Leaves turn yellow in the fall. It produced White bowl shaped flowers. 
• "Fuku-roku-ju" - In Japanese it means fuku "happiness", roku "wealth", and ju "longevity. It is the name of one of the 7 Lucky Gods in Japanese Mythology. Flowers bloom with 15-20 large petals in pink. 
• "Gyo-i-ko" - Unique cherry blossom tree that starts blooming in late april. It's blossoms change colors from green to yellow to pink. At the end it falls by whole flowers instead of individual petals. 
• "Ichiyo" - Commonly known as Hiskura. Grows to a large tree with, spreading dense branches. The flowers are a light salmon pink color with a double layer of petals.  
• "Jo­nioi" - "A lovely plant with flowers of remarkable whiteness" very fragrant. single or semi-double petals, white suffused with pale pink."  ~ The standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture Edited by Liberty Hyde Bailey, 1916
• "Kwan-zan" - aka Prunus Serrulata Sekiyama, Kanzan, or Kansan Cherry. Flowers are pink double bloom and young leaves are bronze colored at first, becoming green. 
• "Mikuruma­gayeshi" - East Asian Cherry Trees. Dark Pink Blossoms in clusters. 
• "Shira-yuki"- "Snow White" -  Yoshino Cherry Trees. Characterized by rounded large white flower petals that open mid-May.
• "Surugadai­nioi" - aka. Cerasus Lannesia, Oshima Cherry Trees - Strongly fragrant white flowers with pink centers. They are said to be emanating from the Meiji period. Young leaves are brown and red. 
• "Taki­nioi" - "Perfumed Falls" - Oshima Cherry Trees. Bloom late March, early April. They are wild, native Japanese Cherry Tries. Their blossoms are slightly pink and have five relatively small petals. They belong to the Yamazakura cherry family. 

I looked up as much information as I could about the cherry blossom trees. I found the varieties on this website that tells the history of Cherry Blossoms in Washington D.C.: 

http://www.nps.gov/cherry/cherry-blossom-history.htm

I hope our first year cherry blossom tree will bloom, then we would be able to tell what cherry variety it is.

P.S. If you found this post interesting, please feel free to subscribe by being a member of this site or to share comments below. I will continue blogging about our cherry blossom tree and post up various information about Cherry Blossoms and Cherry tree care in general. 

OH no, Love tree has lost a leaf!

Love tree is now about 7 months old from seed.

Calvin has just informed me, that Love Tree has lost a leaf!  We have never planted a cherry plant before so we were not sure of what to expect. Do cherry trees lose their leaves in the winter time?

I did a little more research and yes they do. Here is a link to a guide that tells you all about how to grow a cherry tree.
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/treefruit/422-018/422-018.html

Love,
Tina

Love Tree Has Moved Again!

Love tree is now in a bigger pot. The old pot was getting too small for love tree. We noticed the tree was not growing anymore, perhaps there was not enough nutrients in the soil. So we have bought new potting soil (Miracle Potting Soil 8lb pack) and put love tree in a bigger pot.

The directions asked for me to loosen up the root ball. I did so, but I was afraid that I would loosen up the roots too much and thus break love tree's roots. However, Calvin assured me that Love Tree had REALLY STRONG LOVE ROOTS! Haha, he's so silly. He said the love roots would not be affected by Tina hands. lolz. Those were all his words. Oh we're so silly. So, yup hopefully within the next few weeks, love tree will grow more. But seeing as it is winter time now, I doubt there will be much growth. But one can still dream, right?

Progress Report 3

New leaf spotted at the original two leaves' location. Possible 9th leaf.

Tree height: 13.8cm
Age: 33 Days

Posted by Calvin

P.S. Pictures will be posted soon!

oh NO! buggies!!!!!!!

Me and Calvin watered the love tree today and discovered buggies coming out of the bottom of the pot. Oh no! We sprayed some bug repellent, hopefully that will be good enough.

P.S. I told calvin we should be the tree bug sprayyyy! hmphf, this is what happens when Calvin doesn't listen to Tina.

Posted by Tina