Verticillium wilt - I'm devastated!

Hello,

I'm a relatively novice gardener, and last year we bought a house. I planted a 3-4 year old weeping cherry prominently in my front yard, and watered it as I was instructed (every other day last year, easing back to once a week or so, except for the winter. Each time, a deep, slow soak). The weeping cherry was doing absolutely fine and growing and thriving, it flowered in the spring and leafed out beautifully up until this past friday. This past Friday I noticed some of the leaves turning yellow, but I just watered it as usual and hoped for the best. I went away for the weekend and returned this Sunday afternoon (Just 2 day later!) and about 50% of the leaves had dropped, and about half of the ones still on the plant were all curled up and brown!! There was, however, some new light green growth left at the tips of the branches!

I was shocked, I loved my weeping cherry tree and all I dreamed of with my new house is having a beautiful weeping cherry right up front!

I had a licensed arborist who works up the road come over and take a look, and at first he suspected someone might have sprayed some sort of herbicide upwind of me, because the tree got sick SO FAST (in 2 days!), but when he actually looked at it he said it was verticillium wilt. He looked at the leaves and at the bark and was pretty sure about it. I asked him what I can do and he said "nothing. Your tree will die. And don't plant another cherry anywhere around, your soil is contaminated."

I am devastated. Not only is my beautiful weeping cherry going to die, but all I'd ever dreamed of is having a weeping cherry in the front of my house, and now I'm being told that can't happen.

What can I do? Any advice?

I am very discouraged from gardening and planting, if all my hard work amounts to just "give up and don't plant again!". Just depressing. Help? Thanks.

you can always spend the money for a big container type thing to put it in. i have seen people have them in their yard. its like a giant urn and they plant trees in them.

Thanks for the advice, imzadi, but a weeping cherry gets pretty large. I'm not sure there's a container in the world that could hold it!

I really was hoping to have my tree out in my yard...is there anyone out there who has dealt with verticillium wilt? Any thoughts to what the arborist advised? Do I really need to give up planting in the front of my yard for good because of verticillium?

You don't need to give up planting in your front yard--but you will have some limitations on what plants you can put there. Assuming that he was correct that it was verticillium wilt, then he is also correct that you can't plant something else in that spot which is susceptible to verticillium wilt, or else you're likely to end up with it dying as well. So you can't plant a cherry, but there are other types of plants that you could plant.

Here are some sites with lists of plants that are susceptible (which you should avoid planting in that area) and resistant/immune (which would be OK to plant)
http://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/resources/ucdavis_verticillium.pdf
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG1164.html
http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/BP/BP_6_W.pdf
http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/ppa/ppa18/ppa18.pdf

Thanks ecrane3! I feel sad that I can't have a beloved weeping cherry, but at least there are some things I can plant . Thanks again!

You can still have your cherry. Is there somewhere else you could plant one? A side yard or the back?