What Killed Our Cherry Tree?

Sexy Nerd and I seem doomed to lose a tree in our backyard every summer. Here is our yard two summers ago:

See that big, beautiful ash tree? The focal point of our yard? Don't get too attached to it.

Here is our yard last summer:

No ash tree. Just the neighbors ridiculously close house, perhaps placed at an angle so it could be as close as possible. Lush green (fake) lawn though!

Once we'd realized the tree was infested with ash borers, it was too late. It was a sad loss, but we moved on, planting sticks in its place that will one day (Sexy Nerd insists) grow tall enough to block the neighbor's windows. This summer was going to be better! Just look at all the cherries we got from our 2 cherry trees:

So much cherry goodness!

My mom is going to be so mad when she sees I posted photos online with my house a mess!

Do you know where I'm going with this? If you have a cherry tree, you may not want to finish reading this post. It gets pretty scary! Here is 1 of our cherry trees earlier this summer:

It looks healthy to you too, right??

One day, Sexy Nerd noticed that the leaves seemed to be drying up. Here is that exact same cherry tree a little over 2 weeks later:

Holy crap!

There was a major wind storm in between the photo of the pretty tree and the ghostly tree. Sexy Nerd thinks that it was infected with a fungus. We've treated the other plants in the yard, but aren't sure this tree is coming back next year. When you break off a branch, there's no green at all, inside or out.

Fingers crossed that one remaining cherry tree will be alright!

Can a frog prince protect a cherry tree? Let's hope so!

*Update*
Yeah, both cherry trees are long dead. Lousy frog prince.

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