This is normal for a recent transplant and especially quite normal for a transplant of that size. Those leaves are wilting and dropping because of the transplant shock. All you can do is water-water- and water more.

The shot hole/bacterial leaf spot is so common for Cherry that you may as well become accustomed to it.

Don't expect perfection for a few years. It's going to need your help to get those roots anchored deeply and eventually it will be just fine. And don't expect much growth, it's going to be minimal. That tree's #1 priority for itself is to put all the energy it can into the roots for several years.

Best regards,

Dax

The leaf spots are *usually* not severe enough to cause major problems. Here in MD - they do defoliate some trees by August, about one year in 4 or so, but established trees weather it well.

The one cherry around here that isn't that affected as much by the leaf issues is P. subhirtella (Higan Cherry). It does have issues but they seem to be less of a problem.

see link ...

you water.. when it needs water.. thru the whole root mass planted ...

though dax is correct ... on clay soil.. you can drown it ...

so study the watering instructions at the link.. and ask more questions...

only you.. can figure out.. how to water on yoru soil... its not a schedule thing.. and its not a spray the tree with a pistol grip thing..

if you nursery GAVE you the product .. good for them ... if they sold it to you ... well... ??? .... its not really the issue ... and they made more money off you .... its transplant shock .. due to the HUGE transplant.. and slightly out of proper season ... it would have been better.. if you could have gotten it in.. 4 to 6 weeks.. prior to leaf out ... but you do.. what you have to do ... when you can do it ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thank you all for the replies. I did research that the cherries take a lot of maintenance which I'm fine with, but I was just more worried that I was losing the tree. I figured transplant shock would set in but the first 2 weeks it was looking pretty good up until last week/this week. I also planted a redbud Appalachian red on the other side of my yard opposite of the yoshino. That one actually still had flowers on it when we planted it and has really started growing it's leaves quickly (and looking healthy!).

I live in St. Louis so we've had some see-saw type weather lately. I haven't watered it too much since planting because we have gotten quite a few thunderstorms that have rolled through so I didn't want to drown it. The area where I planted the tree does get quite a bit of water when heavy storms come through but it drains pretty well (even for being clay soil). On the hotter days we have had without any rain, I usually just water for about an hour or so on a steady drip for both new trees.

Here is a picture of the tree right now:
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And here is a picture of the tree after planting:
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You can see it has definitely thinned out and you can see the first one has a lot of yellowing leaves on it.

I have three black cherry trees towards the back of my backyard. They were beautiful in 2006 when we built our home, very brilliant yellow leaves in late into the fall and some subtle white flowers in the Spring. About two years later we noticed the the leaf spot occurring within 1-3 months after leaf out and the leaves would drop throughout the entire season and by fall there was almost nothing remaining on the tree.

I hired a reputable tree service company to take a look at them and they indicated that this was due to 2 things....

1) We had a very wet spring that year which increases the likelihood of that particular leaf spot fungus and

2) Even though our house was located 50+ feet away from the trees, the roots were likely disrupted when the foundation was dug.

Not surprisingly they recommended we treat all 3 trees with injected fertilizer and fungicide.

I chose to treat one of them and see what happened, and they all ended up recovering over the next few years on about exactly the same schedule as one another so I don't think the treatment was at all necessary.

Just hang in there, give it time and make sure that you are giving it the correct amount of water based on the weather conditions.

Check out the link below to Casey Trees.
It is a fascinating nonprofit organization in the DC area. lots of great information. One of the suggestions I found on that site was to purchase a rain gauge on Amazon and actually monitor how much rain we are getting locally to know if watering is actually necessary. It can be very tricky since the symptoms for too much water and not enough are so similar and soil differences have such a huge impact as well.

It is a nice looking tree!

Good luck!

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Casey Trees - Tree Watering

Well our poor tree finally has lost almost all of it's leaves. The branches still have flex in them though so i think it's just in shock from transporting/planting. I hope that it comes back next spring.