When should a black cherry be pruned?
The pruning job on black cherry is usually black knot removal, and it has to be done properly: cut 6 to 8 inches below each black crusty gall in the dormant season, haul the prunings off site or burn them, and sanitize between cuts so the saw is not seeding the rest of the tree. Dormant timing matters for a second reason — cherry seals wounds poorly and growing-season cuts invite borers and canker fungi.
Reading black cherry before you cut
Black knot is the signature: elongated black swellings that look like burnt sausage wrapped around twigs and branches, girdling and killing everything beyond them one limb at a time. Distinguish that slow limb-by-limb loss from actual structural failure — bark sloughing in patches off the main stem, gumming or sawdust at the base, and a crown thin everywhere at once means the tree is finished, not merely infected.
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