The Cherry Alleé at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum commands much attention when it announces the arrival of warm spring days. This showcase lasts as long as the weather stays tempered. We often get hints of summer decreasing the full effect of this April cherry floral fest, prompting me to jokingly tell visitors to enjoy the blooms during their 30-minute show. Snowing petals however, look stunningly scenic as exhausted blooms cover the ground. These shorter-lived cherries have been on-site, extending three times their present length to the lakes farther south and aging back more than 50-years.
I have always wished to find a true-to-seed weeping cherry because the selections of grafted weeping cherry taxa leave much to be desired, especially when they age. This weeping cherry, Prunus subhirtella ‘Pendula’ germinates fairly true to seed but it has one downside in USDA Zone 6 Cincinnati…it is highly invasive, vectored by animal consumption of the small drupe fruit. Rogue specimens have dispersed throughout the lower loamier soil areas of Spring Grove and in the adjacent Parker Woods Preserve of Cincinnati Parks. It thrives especially well in shaded woodland sites and in crowns of existing mature shrub plantings. Chicago’s USDA Zone 4 may temper the aggressiveness of Prunus subhirtella, lending it as an ideal weeping cherry. Any thoughts of distribution need to be preceded with test growing trials.

Dave Gressley
Director of Horticulture, Taxonomist