All the Dirt on Gardening

Native Black Cherry trees are a really good idea if you can add some wildlife beneficials to your yard. Cold hardy in zones 3 to 9, Black Cherry is an ideal addition to your habitat shrub row. Happy in sun or part-sun, these trees bloom in April and May providing nectar for pollinators and sweet scent for humans. They have a long tap root so they have to be planted young and will resist being transplanted. Eventually, they grow 50 to 80 feet tall so keep them away from overhead wires. The berries are said to be good for jam but the birds and other wildlife eat them all before we even notice that they've ripened. NativNurseries offers them for under $5 apiece. This nursery has been recommended to me by habitat gardeners. Dudley Phelps at NativNurseries said, " We will be growing plenty more this spring, and should have them back up on our website for sale beginning around the month of August. You can order then and request a ship date for when it is a good time of y...

Prunus serotina, wild black cherry tree Wild black cherry trees have been added to our fence line in two places, thanks to wildlife. No more, please. Considered junk trees by many, we allow these two because they provide early pollen for many insects and late little berries for birds. Of course, the birds like those cherries so much that they replant and replant with abandon. This plant is one of the pioneer species, mostly growing where black walnut, hackberry and black locust trees proliferate. The tree was introduced as an ornamental and since the seed germination rates are very high, it soon became naturalized until today it is considered undesirable or invasive, which ever word you prefer. Wild Black Cherry is host to caterpillars who eat its leaves. If the leaves are crushed, they smell like cherries . Eastern OK is at the far-west portion of its habitat , probably because of our normal rainfall being high. West of the OK/AR state line there is nothing on the gra...