Hi there! Kwanzan flowering cherries are quite spectacular in full bloom! If I may recommend something rather drastic: You might have to re-plant the tree to another location--preferably one that is facing east. Should you decide to do this, it would be a good idea to inoculate the exposed roots with mycorrhizal fungi. The mycorrhizal fungi provide beneficial bacteria that increase the uptake of essential nutrients for the strengthening of the root system and the tree as a whole. I would first dip the exposed roots in the liquid form of the fungi and then just before covering the roots, rest at least four packets of the solid form of the fungi upon them. Garden Gro http://www.thegreengro.com/ sells the liquid form and Xtreme Gardening http://www.ebay.com/itm/Xtreme-Gardening-Mykos-10-gram-Root-Paks-20-ct-/150964902917?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0amp;hash=item2326359c05 sells the solid form of the fungi. Then again you might be placing too much stress on the tree by transplanting it. In that case, i recommend using the powdered or liquid form of the mycorrhizal fungi by green gro and inoculate the tree's roots simply by adding it to the top soil. Also, you might want to think about purchasing another variety of cherry blossom that is better suited to thrive in your climate zone. "Pink cloud" is a type of cherry blossom whose flowers are similar to that of the Kwanzan and seems to tolerate heat and humidity better than most flowering cherries. http://www.lecooke.com/cms/component/content/article/88-ask-the-grower/367-pink-cloud-flowering-cherries.html I truly hope this info helps. Cheers! Best.

Cherry tree seeds typically need 2-3 months cold stratification. First they need to be soaked for 24 hours, then carefully maintained at about 5ðC in your refrigerator for a lengthy period of time, then allowed to germinate in soil under warmer spring conditions. Some growers treat the seeds with a dilute solution of bleach for 10 minutes, so mildew will not later ruin the seed during stratification. A way around having to cold stratify seeds is to soak them in a 200ppm solution of gibberellic acid for 24 hours. This can be difficult to get right, because the seeds are very sensitive to exact concentrations of this plant hormone. Too little and the seed will not germinate, too much and the germinating seedling will sprout too fast and die. Prunus Yedoensis is generally considered "sterile", but it is not completely so. While normally propagated through grafting, it can produce a small number of seeds.

A Bing cherry tree growing in southern California will do reasonably well the first several years, just enough to get your hopes up. After that, it will start dwindling away, more & more each year. And will eventually look so sad you'll remove it. If you want a tree that will grow and produce cherries, ask at your nearest independent garden center which cherry will do well where you live. Several will. But only if you obtain the correct kind. Ask when it/they will be available. (In SoCal, bareroot tree fruits are generally available during Jan. & Feb; sometimes in Dec.) As for the flowering cherries and other trees that require substantial amounts of chill -- total hours between 32 and 45 during Dec, Jan & Feb, but subtracting all hours above 65F -- will grow but will bloom erratically & will leaf out erratically. So save yourself a lot of grief and grow "low-chill" fruit tree(s) suited to your region. The large garden centers know which ones they are. But you need to ask. One big problem: Just because a garden center in your region sells a specific fruit tree doesn't mean it will thrive there. Jean, who gardened in Long Beach, CA, for 30-some years.

"subgenus" may be more appropriate (or maybe not, taxonomists have put both sweet and sour cherries into the subgenus Cerasus). All these different cherry species are very closely related, if one wants to consider them different species. This is one example where the line separating different species is not a clear one. It could even be possible to consider the different cherry families as subspecies. After all, if they can freely interbreed and hybridize with each other, can they not be considered members within the same species? (by this definition we could divide all cherries into only 2 groups: those with 16 chromosomes and those with 32) Or one could attempt to divide cherries into different families: Sweet cherries (P. avium), sour cherries, Black cherries plus Capulin native to the American continent (put into same group), and Asian flowering cherries. Perhaps better classification could be provided if taxonomists utilized multiple degrees of species relatedness/separation, because it is ambiguous whether some of the different cherries should be classified as entirely separate species or subspecies within a singular species, neither of which would be wholly accurate.