I'm sorry but 5 minutes a day is not sufficient water for any plant!! When you water, you want the water to penetrate the soil to the full depth of the root zone - at least 8-10 inches, ideally more. And that takes a lot longer than 5 minutes in all but the sandiest soils. You are just barely wetting the soil surface with this practice. The recommendation for ANY plant is to water infrequently but slowly and deeply when you do.

FWIW, a tree established in the ground for three years - Lapin cherry or any other - likely needs no supplemental irrigation here in the PNW until we hit our long dry stretch in July and August. And then only once every 2 weeks or so but slowly and deeply. Period!! I don't even water my Japanese maples more frequently than that!!

Sorry, I was wrong. It is 9 minutes a day. And it is from a small, localized sprinkler, so there is quite a bit of water that is put out in those 9 minutes.

But, I will change the watering to 15 minutes, every 4 days, when there is no rain for more than a week (like last week when it was 99 for two days in a row, and so far this week when it was 90 for two days straight).

Thanks.

Automated sprinkler systems are seldom, ever, designed with the plant's needs in mind. For whatever reason, irrigation system designers are just not very plant savvy :-)

Believe me - I do this for a living - you would be far better served (and your trees far healthier) if you watered only once a week at most for 25-30 minutes. Even in hot weather (and we are also sharing very similar warm weather up here in the Puget Sound area). And rather than a sprinkler system, which in most cases are relatively useless and a massive waste of water except when dealing with lawns, a drip or soaker or other low emission system will work far better. You can get your irrigation contractor to convert a portion of your automated system to this method if you like and are serious about providing the best irrigation methods to your plants.

When watering established inground plantings, low and slow and infrequently is the best way to go !! :-))

Thanks.

The sprinkler in question is a small one. It is attached to a garden hose and a timer. It is not wasteful at all. It waters JUST the two trees with a spray that is five feet across, no more. It is between the two trees. It is not a misty spray, it is heavy drops.

I could increase it to 30 minutes, once a week, for weather with no rain in a week.

gardengal48 is completely right.

Most people have a very poor understanding of the type of watering a fruit tree needs. The water needs to be applied very slowly to have time to be able to soak deep into the soil. If a huge amount of water is just poured on all at once, most of the water is likely to run off. and likely leave the top soil very muddy.

How often you need to water depends on your climate and time of the year. On the West Coast, which has hot dry summers, in general fruit trees need to be watered once every week, sometimes even more frequently for young trees during the middle of summer. Many people don't seem to realize that their fruit tree cannot just be neglected for 1 or 2 months. And ordinary sprinkler systems that just spray a little water in all directions almost always fail to provide the tree with anywhere close to enough water. And then stupid people who didn't really give any thought to the water issue wonder why their tree looks so unhealthy.