Hi Jiver! I live north of Detroit and also have a HoneyCrisp. This is its fourth year of life. The first year that it fruited we had about five gorgeous and tasty apples (that is all it gave us). Last year it was full of apples, but it was also full of every pest and fungus known to Michigan apples (Cedar Apple Rust, flyspeck, Plum Leaf Curculio, apple maggot, web worms, leaf roller, and more)! I was a newbie and had no clue how to prepare for it or what to do about it. This year I have read up and am hoping for better success. I want to avoid chemicals so am climbing uphill. I would love to keep up with you as we both attempt to keep our apples healthy to harvest so maybe we can learn from each other. I cleaned up every leaf and dropped apple, threw away all the bad apples from the tree, and carefully inspected the tree (often) for signs of bad leaves or bugs (which I pinched off upon discovery). I semi-thinned (left two or three on each bunch) my apples out a few weeks ago but hadn't yet learned about bagging. I sprayed it with copper soap and a soap spray distributed by Gardens Alive to control fungus. This method requires reapplication every 7 days AND after every rain. This is high-maintenance but not a big deal when you only have one tree. I just bagged my tree this week and noticed as I was out there that several of the baby apples had bug bites already. I am afraid this means they've been parasitized, so I clipped them off and threw them away. I thinned to only one or two apples on a bunch and bagged all that looked healthy. I hated to clip off all those with bug bites, but I should still have over 100 large apples to harvest. I think next year I will be sure to bag it the week BEFORE Memorial Day since this week (the week following Memorial Day) there was a fairly high incidence of insect activity. I look forward to hearing of your success.

Good deal. Now I'm not saying no pruning ever. Just that at this stage, it is not only not needed, it is probably best to leave the tree be for now. Just a couple more general comments: It may sound funny coming from a guy who has literally pruned perhaps hundreds of thousands of trees in his time, but for the most part, trees know how to grow. So for example that exuberant burst of growth your cherry put on-it's all good. The stems will thicken, especially if the tree is allowed to wave around in the breeze. Later, like one or two years form now, you may in fact want to do some pruning. But most of the pruning we do on trees is for our needs, not those of the tree. So for example, someone might've planted a young oak tree in their yard, for eventual shade as well as all the many other benefits. So in time, they will want to "raise it up" some, which simply means removal of lower branches, so as to allow walking under the tree, mowing the lawn, etc. But these are human needs, not something the tree needs to have done to itself. And whereas forest-grown trees self-prune on their own, our open-grown trees, sunlight hitting them from every angle, will tend to develop lots of low, stout branches. This isn't "wrong" per se, but it might not meet our needs. One thing we do like to do is something called "leader training" which is basically setting the tree up with a strong structure, so as to allow it to function in the landscape for as long as possible. A technique you might want to look up, called subordination pruning, comes into play here. But those are mostly concerns with shade trees, not your ornamental cherry trees. Some overlap, but not completely. In any case, right now is not the time to do any of this1

I am far from an expert, so proceed with my advice at your own risk. Here goes: the tree is so young that you have plenty of room for correcting the error. If it were MY tree, I would loosely stake the tree trunk straight now. Then, when it's dormant, i would cut the central leader back to below the top bend, and shorten some side limbs. For the next threeyears, don't let the tree produce any fruit. The tree's energy needs to go to developing strong roots and trunk. In a couple years, when the trunk is much stronger, remove the stake.

As for zone rating, I live on a ridge just north of Spruce Grove, had moved here 15 years ago and had great success with several things somewhat better suited to zone 4, such as most of the paniculata hydrangeas and some maples .... then, along came a few extraordinary extreme early fall severe freezes and winter lows the likes of not seen in years, well talk about pushing our zone rating back to a solid zone 3, whereas I do believe Edmonton has a few degrees of buffering that maintain it within a zone 4 rating, almost, LOL. A very tough climate none the less! Whereas, thankfully, for the most part winter snow cover is rather reliable and allows me to grow some perennials that sometimes are known to succumb even in zone 5 due to their troubles with winter wet.