Sounds like a smart tree. It knows it has to grow roots before fruits.

I have no idea what you mean by small red bumps at the base of new leaves. Are they alive? Are they hard? Are they on the leaf or on the bark or on the leaf stem?

My cherries sometimes get aphids that are dark when everything else gets aphids that are light. If not looking close I could imagine thinking of them as "red bumps" and new growth is where they would want to be.

Yes, it will take a few years to get blossoms. Those little red bumps have a name which escapes me now. The ants sometimes like to visit them. They serve no purpose I know of and they are nothing to worry about.

Scott

Pharmanista:

You have a normal situation. It would be very unusual to see any blossoming in the 1st season after planting a Montmorency tree. In the 2nd season, you might see some blossoms, but they are likely not to set fruit, or to set small cherries then drop them. Same thing in the 3rd season.

But by the 4th season, your tree should have grown up enough to set and hold a nice little crop of cherries. As the tree matures and grows more fruiting wood, the size of the crop will increase dramatically each year. Rootstock type also influences precocity of bearing. A fully dwarfing rootstock like Gisela 5 would be an earlier producer than a larger tree on the traditional Mahaleb rootstock. But a larger tree will eventually have a much larger crop -- enough for pitting and freezing lots of cherries. If you have a large, fast-growing tree you will, at some point, want to prune for size control. There is no point in growing cherries that you cannot reach from your ladder, and fallen cherries can often lead to infestations of the cherry fruit fly. Cultivate around the base of your tree in winter to kill the pupae of this insect and break their cycle. You will surely see the cherry fruit fly in North Carolina.

Another thing you will eventually see in NC is bacterial canker, which is the bane of cherry trees in the east. If you see cankers developing on your tree, prune off the affected branches and dormant spray the tree with a strong copper solution to ward off development of this disease. Canker is the factor that usually limits the lifespan of cherry trees in the east to about 25 years, and it is worse in areas with lots of wild prunus like the common Serotina.

Agree with Scott that the little red bumps are of no concern. They have been discussed here before, and I have also forgotten what they are called. It was something forgettable.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thanks for all the great advice!!! That helps a lot!

The purpose of the little red bumps is to produce a sweet substance that attracts ants. The tree does this when it is having aphid or other infestations, because it knows the ants will eat the aphids. So the tree uses the red bumps to attract the ants to eat the aphids. Nature at work is a beautiful thing.