I can tell you that a KWANZAN CHERRY should do quite well for you in MA.

My husband gave me a sapling Kwanzan Cherry tree in spring 1983, planted in mid May.

It has grown beautifully since.

Last years pics, color not perfect with the camera but you can see it's size as well as blooms

Fran
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Wow!
Great looking tree! Just have to get rid of the dead one in the backyard and will start looking for somewhere to get this.
Thanks,
E

ps - looked up climates for the loquat tree and am sad to note that it would never survive up here :(

Ah, just looking at that tree makes my heart happy. What a beauty. Hope my little Kwanzan looks like that some day. Thanks, Fran.

Jane

eoren, My hubby says he got it at Mahoney's in Winchester.

Jane,

There's a funny story to that tree.

There's an old wives tail that my grandmother reminded me of before she died.

We had been trying to have a second baby and getting no where and my grandmother reminded me of this tale.

"When having trouble getting pregnant, plant both a dogwood and a kwanzon japanese cherry tree, You will be pregnant within 3 months. You will know the sex of the baby before it's born the following spring. Which ever tree survives will tell you the sex. Dogwood is boy. Cherry is girl."

Well hubby got both trees and we planted them in Mid May. Sure enough I was pregnant by the beginning of August, due the end of May.

Come the spring the baby was due and well, the dogwood tree was dying and the cherry tree was fine.
By the time my baby was born, the dogwood tree was deader than a doornail and I had my daughter in my arms.

2 years later the cherry tree was just barely blooming, but was blooming and kind of looking a bit sad in my opinion.

My mother was here for 4th of July that there and was looking at the tree and said "well the rest of the story on the cherry tree goes like this.

"it will bloom poorly till it is attacked by a bad insect infestation. Kill off the infestation and you will have a huge blooming tree from the next year on."

then she said "looks like you will plenty of blooms next year, you have termites in one part of the tree."

We turned green and hubby ran for a saw to cut off the part that was infested with termites, cut it off, bagged in is several layers of plastic bags and brought it to the local county extension service for proper disposal.

We sealed the cut section of the tree, as the main trunk had split into 2 sections and we had one side left.

We saw no further termite problem and, YES, the following year on it has bloomed and bloomed profusely.

Now, my neighbor across the street was with my husband when he bought the trees and she got the same ones I did. She wasn't trying to have a baby, far to old for that and just wanted the trees.

Her dogwood, a white Kousa, has bloomed beautifully for years and years, but her cherry tree was always a pathetic little thing.

Then about 5 years or so ago, the tree was attacked by little green worms and badly defoliated. She nursed it all summer with extra water and some fertilizer, and the following year on, it's bloomed it heart out an looks more like mine now.

Are the old wives tales true? I don't know, I can only tell what happened with mine and my neighbors home and see what we have.

Fran

eoren1,

You should be able to grow the Yoshino flowering cherries as well as the weeping cherry. Along the north shore is zone 6. As for the loquat, it would only grow in a container and you'd have to bring it inside for the winter. A problem with that is that they don't go dormant in winter, instead it's when they bloom, so you would need a sunny room that doesn't get too cold at night.

Good luck in your new home!

Fran: Speechless. What an incredible and wonderful story. Wow. Well, long past the baby stage, within the past two years I have planted both Kwanzan and Kousa and have been protecting a wild dogwood sapling, so I'm open for the wonderment of it all! In a small framed picture of a wise and curious Chinese man on my desk is the saying,"Keep a green tree in your heart, and one day the singing bird will come". It certainly appears that you did exactly that - and how lucky to have wonderful storytellers around you! Thanks very much for writing it. Great story!

Kindly,

Jane