Cherry blossom - builder have wrecked it - advice please

Hi,

firstly, I'm not a gardener but I do love our trees.

I THINK this is a cherry blossom as it flowers like one each year (though someone once said it was a type of 'apple').

Any way, the builders decided (without asking) to chop of one of its 2 'arms' off so they could get their heavy gear in.

The tree now looks hideous. I know it is slow growing (we've been at the house for 10 years and it hasn't grown much) so my fear is that nothing will grow again on the 'amputated' arm. To make matters wiorse it sits in quite a prominent position in our front garden - hence why it will be noticed so much and why I need to 'do something' about it.

So options are:

a) cut the arm back a little bit more (so it looks less silly) and hope branches regrow from it over time?

b) get a tee surgeon to cut the arm right back to the tree trunk and then have a disfigured, one-armed tree

c) cut the whole tree down as it looks a mess (it will never recover!)

thanks for opinions/advice

Floyd

 

I have just gone through heavy pruning of an Almond tree, a Jacaranda and a Myoporum and personally I would equal the right with the left and wait a year to see how it recovers then decide what to do. And shame on those builders!

 

thank you Loofah and Victoria.

I was fuming when it happened.

It isn't the prettiest tree but when flowering, like most blossom trees, it looks amazing hence my hesitation to bring it down.

Can anyone confirm that it is a cherry blossom?

 

Well presumably they had to cut that bit off to get the scaffolding up, so it was inevitable, but they probably should have asked first.
Dont think anyone would hazard a guess as to what kind of tree it is from that one picture.

Quite often if you lop a big branch you get vigorous growth from that area the following year.
To me it would be a case of wait and see.

 

I hope you've made a claim for the damage to the tree Floyd.

Can we have a close up shot of the bark on the trunk please, we will be able to define whether it's a cherry from that.

 

hey, here are the close-ups.

TBH, to me, it looks like an apple tree but it doesn't bear fruit and it does produce blossom (think one is white but could be pink - can't remember...over to you... !)

 

No it's not a cherry, probably as you say, an apple.

 

I would expect it to send out a load of branches from where the tree is cut so you'll have one side with branches and the other side with a twig pompom. I'm with Loofah - I would take it out and plant something that has interest lower down but I can be pretty ruthless where trees are concerned

 

thank you all.

Like most, I really try to avoid chopping trees but I think I might remove this one given the circumstances. I just wanted to check (with those that know) that it wasn't some kind of 'rare' or ancient tree...
it doesn't produce fruit either...