All of the cherries

[WellTidy]

From my cherry tree have disappeared overnight. They haven’t dropped, I think they’ve been eaten by birds. But I suppose they could have dropped and then been eaten.

It is the third year we’ve had it - year one it did nothing as it had only just been planted, year two it was truly covered with aphids in May (happened within the space of a week) and all the leaves curled completely and went very crispy. It had been looking really strong this year and I had high hopes. Hmmm.

Yes it will be birds. I just leave then to it.

Happened to mine last year, same thing. Looked at a nice little crop of cherries every day, getting riper and redder . . . one day when we thought they were just about ready, we went out for the morning and by the time we got back early afternoon they were all gone. Mrs Blackbird had been hanging around for a while but whoever it was, it was bloody fast work.

I have a full size cherry tree, it's taller than our garage so there is no hope of caging or netting it and the birds either eat them if knock them off every year. It is very rare that they stay on the tree long enough to become red and its such a shame (for me, birds love that tree!).

Well this is a little disappointing! I planted a plum, apple and cherry with the idea that we’d involve the children etc. They love eating what we grow, it’s lovely to see. But it turns out that I’m growing cherries for the birds.

Aaaah but if you start watching Springwatch you’ll see how busy the birds are st the moment raising their young and you won’t be cross with them for long. It’s a beautiful thing and I’m glad they get to enjoy the cherries 😍

I remember a childhood friend having a cherry tree in her family’s garden. They used to net some of the lower, more accessible branches and leave the rest for the birds, so everyone got some cherries. Could that be a future solution?

I seem to be sharing my strawberry crop this year with some blackbirds on a two for them and one for me basis, so I do feel your pain!

Squirrels also love eating ours- they eat the berries very young when the blossom is still on them. I am a bit sad we never get the cherries but there is something rather lovely about seeing a squirrel eating a cherry blossom

Netting part of it is a good idea. I am all for providing homes and nourishment for birds, bees etc. Most of the garden has been planted and tended with this in mind. But we all fancid having a cherry from the tree!

Blackbirds are eating my strawberries this year too! They weren’t interested last year!

The only way we ever got any of our, initially, vast cherry (morello and sweet) crop was by netting some branches. Even then the birds pecked through to what they could reach. When the rats found the trees that was the end of the trees and we planted apples and pears. We still find cherry stones when we uncover old rats' nests in the garden.

Rats?! Was the existence of rats in any way linked to you having cherry trees, do you think Noflora? I am shuddering something chronic here.

About once every 7 years, the rain and the sun and the wind and the frosts all work perfectly and the tree produces HEAPS of cherries for a day or two. If you are quick you will manage to get a few.

Most years however, the birds spot them coming, and eat them before they are even half-ripe.

I doubt it was anything more than opportunism WellTidy, I can't imagine cherries would specifically lure them in. But we don't know what did. We have a large garden so do expect some rats to appear somewhere sometimes but this was horribly close to the house.

Look on the bright side. If your birds are eating the cherries, hopefully they'll leave the apples alone.

(They won't, of course - but the time the apples are ready for pecking, the cherries will be a distant memory)

My pears disappeared overnight last year (or they seemed to, maybe over a couple of nights), nothing on the ground, no evidence there was ever any pears! I nearly blamed the neighbours, still don't know what happened, but I presume some sort of animal really loves pears, because the same thing happened to my other pear trees.

Thought I'd come back to this and show you my trees! The biggest of the two is twice the height of our garage - can you imagine how many cherries I should be getting from it. I'd be rich, rich I tell you!

Wish I could edit posts, the smaller tree produces blossom only so isn't actually a cherry tree!

I’ve got the same problem with my cherry trees and birds. This year I have tied metallic tape to the branches, I’ll let you know if it works!

When I was a child, we had a morello cherry tree - they're not palatable raw until they're nearly black. The blackbird would come and peck a red cherry, say "yuk", and try the next one, until every cherry on the tree had a single peck hole in it.

I don't know why I like blackbirds. Our current one is taking newts from the pond, and last year I reckon I lost 15lb of Worcester apples to him.

We have a cherry tree in the garden too, but I maybe get one or two cherries a year between my son and the blackbirds!

It's too big to net and tbh I think if I netted it I would spend the whole time worrying about whether a bird had got tangled in the net .

My solution has been to buy another cherry tree this year on a patio tree rootstock so it won't get too big, and I am growing it in a pot, so once it's big enough to bear fruit I can bet that one for us and the birds can have the big tree !

I love watching the birds in the garden and they eat lots of the insects that are damaging to my lawn/plants so I figure it's a fair trade off . I can't blame them as when we bought the house I planted lots of native trees and hedges, plants/flowers so I encouraged them in!