What's Eating My Cherry Tree?
With cherries the race is against birds — everything else is a side plot. But two insects can ruin fruit and foliage quietly, so know all three stories.
The usual suspects
Birds
The signs: Fruit stripped ripe-first from the top down; pecked cherries left hanging. A flock can clear a tree in a day.
What it looks like: Robins, starlings, cedar waxwings — timed to the exact morning of ripeness.
What to do: Net the tree (or key limbs) before first blush, sealed at the trunk. On big trees, netting a few reachable limbs and ceding the crown is the honest compromise.
Cherry fruit fly maggots
The signs: Soft, sunken spots on ripening fruit; inside, a small white maggot near the pit.
What it looks like: Larvae of small flies with banded wings that appear as fruit yellows.
What to do: Hang yellow sticky traps with ammonia lures at fruit set to monitor and thin, pick clean and early, and never leave drops beneath the tree.
Black cherry aphids
The signs: New leaves curled into tight sticky clumps that turn black with sooty mold, worst on sweet cherries.
What it looks like: Shiny black aphids packed inside the curls.
What to do: Prune out the worst curled tips in early summer, blast what you can reach, and trust lady beetles by midsummer — trees outgrow it.
Pear slug (cherry sawfly)
The signs: Upper leaf surfaces rasped away in patches, leaving a brown skeleton window; heavy years bronze the whole tree.
What it looks like: Small olive-green, slug-like glossy larvae on leaf tops in summer.
What to do: Dust reachable foliage with wood ash or spray insecticidal soap; healthy trees tolerate a bronzed August.
Tent caterpillars
The signs: Silk tents in branch forks in spring, defoliation radiating outward.
What it looks like: Hairy caterpillar colonies in the webbing — wild cherries are their first choice.
What to do: Pull tents on cool mornings into soapy water; a spring defoliation sets the tree back but rarely kills it.
When it's not a pest at all
Cherries rotting on the branch under gray-brown fuzz are brown rot — remove mummies and prune for airflow. Clear gum oozing from bark without sawdust is gummosis, a general stress signal: check drainage and mechanical injury before suspecting borers.
Or just point your phone at it
Snap a photo of the leaf, the bug, or the droppings, and Harold — the advisor built into Homestead Paradise — names what he sees, tells you friend or foe, and what he'd do next. Honest when he's unsure, and careful where it counts.
Put Harold's Eyes on it — free 14-day trial