Hi everyone--

Usually, I'm browsing the rose forum, but I have a question about my old Bing cherry tree. For the first time ever in the fall, it has quite a few blooms on it just as our temps are hitting freezing this week. Why do you think this is happening? I try to deep water around once a month when there is no rain.. The only thing that's different from other years, is that a family member has been sprinkling coffee grounds regularly around the tree. Otherwise, it hasn't been fertilized at all this year. Will the bloom prevent it from having a good bloom next spring?

It's not unusual to see Prunus sp. bloom in late Fall/early Winter if the tree has been seriously stressed during the Summer.
Stress for cherries usually means a combination of heat and drought, but it's also possible the water table underneath your land is shifting and causing changes in ground moisture levels you cannot detect from above ground. Consider altering your watering schedule next year.

Usually Prunus trees don't expend all their buds this way so it should be an inconvenience at most.

Thank you for your input. Our property has a lot of hardpan, although our neighbor says horses were raised on it several decades ago. This has been a brutal year for heat. I always get a few fall blooms on our pear and apple trees, but nothing like what I see on the cherry tree. The watering is about the same as it always has been, so I thought maybe the addition of coffee grounds had something to do with the blooming.

Coffee grounds are around 2% nitrogen, 0.3% phosphorous and 0.3% potassium in weight so unless Starbucks are dumping all their grounds in your property by night I doubt they are making any difference.

Fall/Winter blooming in fruit trees is always tied to stress in the Summer, especially so in Prunus sp. Generally speaking the longer the chill requirement, the higher the chances you'll see the plant bloom in the Fall: Bing is on the high side at over 700 hours below 45F so it makes sense.

I wonder if it's the same for one of my Asian pears, fall blooming.