In 2015, I lost two flowering cherry trees in my yard. A weeping fountain cherry and a Kwanzan cherry. In late fall of 2014, it was a strange season. Do you remember? Warm temperatures and calm winds, high temperatures in the mid-70 range the week before Thanksgiving. I was still harvesting tomatoes. Then suddenly, it was sub-freezing. The transition was too abrupt for thousands of trees in our City of Trees and they were killed, although we didn’t know until the following spring.
This week, I noticed a patch of mushrooms in the place where the Kwanzan cherry used to live.
Fungi thrives in dead wood. The remnants of the tree trunk and roots have decayed to the point of providing a happy home for these little mushrooms. Mother Nature is cool that way. No treatment is needed. They will do their thing and disappear. Maybe they’ll come back later. No damage done.
Here are the last blossoms the tree gave me in the spring of 2015. Two whole flowers. Dozens of pink buds that never opened and no leaves. The trunk had a long, vertical crack. I had the tree cut down later that summer, after waiting for months for the tree service to have room on the schedule. They removed hundreds of Kwanzan cherry trees that summer, including all the ones along Capitol Boulevard near the river. New Kwanzans were planted in those spaces.
The shower of pink flowers every spring was a fun time for my kiddo and her best friend.
I have not replaced the tree, by the way. Still thinking about it, though. It was a lovely tree.
~Debbie