What to do with frozen shoots on cherries and sweet cherries: a guide from experienced gardeners
If you notice darker colored branches on your cherry or sweet cherry tree, there is a good chance that they have been damaged by severe frost.
An expert of the online publication Belnovosti, agronomist, and landscape designer Anastasia Kovrizhnykh notes that the degree of damage to shoots may vary.
Some of the branches were only slightly touched by frost and have every chance of coming back to life.
Others were completely destroyed by the cold, and unfortunately we will have to say goodbye to them.
How can you determine the degree of shoot freezing? The following test will help you with this.
Cut off several branches from the tree and carefully examine the cut. The darker the wood, the greater the damage: the cut of healthy branches has a whitish-green color, the shade of slightly damaged branches is yellowish, those shoots that died are light brown or dark beige on the cut.
Now let's answer the question of what to do with frozen shoots. Of course, you can't do without pruning. In this case, you should pay attention to the degree of freezing of the branches.
If the cherry or sweet cherry tree has only slightly frozen, remove only the ends of the branches that were affected by frost, cutting them back to healthy tissue.
If the degree of freezing is characterized as average, the branches are shortened further, cutting them to the lateral branch.
If the garden is severely frozen, you will have to remove the affected branches completely.
