Thanks Don for sharing your insight and experience with me. I am prepared to prune like it is going out of style. My back yard is not very challenging to me right now with not much to do in it vegetatively. Even my garden I expanded this year had been very maintenance-free. I think I only pulled half a dozen weeds out since April. I've worked on creating a compact garden and a berry bed in the inside-side of the fence. My back yard is small and only extends about 24' back from the corner of the house. I fenced most of it in. I left some space on the outside of the east side where these trees are going. The soil is especially murderous on that side of the yard. I suspect when this house was constructed a little less than 3 years ago that the access road for the neighborhood construction was through that area. I notice contractor people here like to spread heaps of plentiful limestone rocks around construction sites for their machinery/keep mud down. It gets compacted and pressed down with that heavy equipment as houses are built. Then after a house is built it appears topsoil is added on top for sod, but it is never spread evenly. This explains why the west side of the yard is much easier to put shovel in than the east side. All my neighbors complain about their yards being the same way. Here's an example of what happened to all the rocks dug up in my back yard: I dug the final hole for that Mcintosh this evening and the soil was considerably easier to dig in. I had watered the spot where I wanted the tree a couple times this week and notice before doing that.. that the grass was more lush there. I can visually see where I will have a chore digging and where it will be relatively easy with not nearly as much shovel aerobics to pry out boulders and stones 'glued' into the ground. I hope these trees, as close as they are grow like wildfire because I want more privacy in my little yard. Notice in my picture the houses at the top of the picture... There's always people staring down at my wife and I from those balconies/roadway. We'd much rather they stare at fruit trees. I hope they grow 20' tall. ;) I will be sure to let you know how my Mcintosh grows (or dies). Last winter it was always colder on that side of the house. The path between the houses adjacent to mine act as a wind shaft to convect cold air along that area. Maybe that will be beneficial to the Mcintosh. Time will tell I guess. I will plant the Mcintosh probably tomorrow. I want to mix in some of that fertilized tree/shrub mix with our limely clay soil as I had for the two other trees. I could cram one more tree along the fence, but I have a white pine in the inside that should complete the blocked view (someday). I say I don't mind pruning now, but I may be saying different in 3-5 years eh? :)

Cherries vary one kind to another on resistance. In our area research at Mt Vernon WA has listed recommended ones more well suited. I went for that which is why I had long ago went with Surefire and the sweet cherry Early Burlat. Over the years my Burlat had been as disease free as the Japanese types of flowering cherries (shirofugen, prunus osima zakura etc.) And superior to others in my neighborhood. One main problem is the flowers bloom to early on the hill heights area in Vancouver WA (above Portland) and even though the bloom is rain resistant the bees are not pollinating during poor conditions and thus little fruit. I must hand pollinate. Other than the above remedy of selecting the right ones and about later bee friendly blooming ones you could try the idea of hand pollinating. I always set fruit on Burlat from Van cherry from my little greenhouse. In your case a Burlat flower from one you could graft to CJ tree could be dried indoors, possibly store it in fridge for a few days, and applied to CJ flowers. Even though nothing that I know of can be found to spray on to prevent infections you can still "wait and see". By that I mean to get your tree to over about 5 years of age because age 2-4 is the most prone years according to tests done West of the Cascades in Oregon.

Did you do a soil test? I'm not far from you and when we checked our soil, we had a ton of potassium, and no nitrogen. None. Not even a drop. We've also faced some challenges with cucurbits. I've been spraying with a combination of Neem Oil and Copper (about 1/2 tblspn each in a dollar-store hand sprayer) to fight the squash bugs and powdery mildew, respectively. We've mixed it up with a baking soda, garlic, dish soap and onion spray, too, when the stinkbugs and aphids came out. Also, compost heavily. Cucurbits are hungry, and in new soil, and the poor soil we have, there's no such thing as too much compost. Every iota of kitchen scrap goes to a cucurbit. We've had mixed results, in West San Antonio. Our pumpkins are HUGE, and the zucchini are prolific, but the watermelons are struggling and I've only had one cucumber, so far. One thing that I think has helped, for us, as I look at what's succeeded and what hasn't, is companion planting. I've got a whole mess of borage and sunflowers digging into that hard clay. I'll yank leaves off them, and throw them down as mulch sometimes. The plants where I've done that have done better.The successful zucchini are surrounded by radishes and snow peas and borage and sunflowers. I'd be able to experiment more, but volunteer pumpkins came up from a composted mustard bed after Halloween, and we managed to keep them alive all winter. Now we're getting these massive pumpkin vines that have completely dominated a huge swath of our garden real estate, unplanned. Huge pumpkins, too! With a mild enough winter and kloaches of a big enough size, I suspect that any long-season cucurbits ought to be planted in the late fall, around here. I've got more pumpkin vine than I know what to do with! If I had tried the same trick with Watermelons, I'd be eating them already! My ten cents... I know this topic is a little old and you've solved your own problems. Your raised beds look awesome! I always overplant for high-density practices and things quickly become a jungle.

I wouldn't count on either remaining only 10 ft. wide - 10 ft. wide for a tree is nothing (see the widths given for the trees in the C.S.U. tables I linked to earlier). If you are that restricted maybe you should be looking at shrubs. Also the planting site looks like it might be a little damp, the presence of the aspen would tend to reinforce this. So it might be damper than the cherry would like; in addition when purchasing flowering cherries you have to watch that the stock offered is not grafted on sweet cherry (Prunus avium) or you are likely to end up with suckering, heavy surface roots and delayed graft incompatibility. As I mentioned earlier deciduous trees are only going to provide much screening when in leaf, and the aspen wasn't even doing that when it was in leaf. But maybe you are only concerned about privacy enhancement during summer, when sitting etc. out in the yard. If instead you don't want to be able to see the neighbor's house whenever you look that way then you need to be planting evergreen trees or shrubs. Also a row or grouping of evergreen trees on the north side of the property - whichever one that is - is a good idea in cold climates because it blocks Arctic winds. This is actually recommended for sheltering the house and reducing heat loss, in addition to making adjacent outdoor spaces more pleasant to be in whenever there is a sharp wind blowing out of the North - be it winter, spring or fall.