Snow Fountains Weeping Cherry Tree

Spring is the most magical season of the gardening year. It is filled with flowering plants, big and small, yet among all this beauty there is one tree that never fails to stand out and catch everyone’s attention. This is the Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry, an outstanding small weeping tree with crystal-white blooms on long, cascading branches that reach the ground. Sparkling in the spring sunshine, this tree will grab your heart, and you will gaze in admiration at its beauty. After a period of green leaves over summer, it will be back again, as a fountain of orange, gold and red spilling down, a highlight of the fall season. Even in winter the unique outline of those cascading branches will captivate you, especially when outlined with a dusting of fresh snow.

Easy to grow, needing no special care, hardy across most of the country, yet so beautiful, the Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry is also small enough to be grown in a small garden, where most larger weeping trees will not fit. It is an essential feature in any Japanese or Asian-themed garden, big or small, where it captures for you just the right look to give your garden an authentic feel. Plant this tree in a small lawn or courtyard as a specimen, in any garden at all. Grow it among other medium-sized shrubs and small trees, for early spring and fall color. Plant it in a corner of your Asian garden, beside a large boulder, a lantern or a pond. Wherever you use it you will be adding a beautiful feature to your garden.

Growing Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry Trees

The Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry is a small tree, typically growing to around 12 feet tall, and about 6 feet wide. Its flexible branches allow you to modify the shape significantly, to suit your needs. Left to grow by itself it will form a broad mound of branches which arch upwards briefly and then cascade straight down to the ground. In spring the bare branches are smothered in cherry blossoms, of a clear and perfect white. Each flower has 5 petals, and in the center is a tiny cluster of yellow stamens. The flowers crowd the branches so densely the bark is almost completely hidden.

Even when the petals fall the brief carpet of snow they create is enchanting, and all part of the charm of this lovely plant. As the flowering is ending, fresh green shoots are emerging, and soon those pendulous branches will be covered in pretty, green leaves, 3 inches long and oval in shape, with a soft serrated edge. Then in fall, as the weather cools, the leaves turn all the magic color of fall, until they too drop to the ground, revealing the graceful winter architecture of this beautiful ‘4-seasons’ tree.

Planting and Initial Care

The Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry grows almost anywhere in the country, from zone 4 to zone 8. It will grow in ordinary garden soil, including alkaline soils, and it should be planted in full sun so it produces the most flower buds, and gives the most spectacular floral display. Because of its flexible branches you can train this tree into many forms. By adding height to the staking and turning a branch upwards, you can continue to tree to greater height, making a multi-level cascading beauty.

Uses in Your Garden

It can also be planted against a sunny wall or tall fence, and by spreading out the branches you can form a beautiful espalier tree on a trellis. Planted on a slope you can allow the branches to cascade down along ground or over a wall – the options for making something spectacular are endless.

History and Origins of the Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry Tree

The Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry was created in 1985 by Jim Zamponi, who was the owner and CEO of Lake County Nursery, in Perry, Ohio. He turned it into one of the largest wholesale nurseries in America, and Jim was an icon in the industry. He bred over 150 new plants, and he called this one ‘Snofozam’, using his own name to end it, as he did with all his plants. The name Snow Fountains® was registered as a suitable garden name, and it certainly describes the tree perfectly.

The exact origin and breeding of the plant is unclear, but it is probably a variety of the Yoshino Cherry (Prunus x yedoensis), a Japanese tree found growing only in gardens, not in the wild. One of the parents of the Yoshino Cherry may be Prunus subhirtella, another Japanese cherry which has several weeping varieties. That tree too has been suggested as the origin of the Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry. Whatever its exact origins, this is a marvelous small tree, and a great tribute to Jim Zamponi, who passed away in 2017.

Our trees are produced by attaching stem pieces of the Snow Fountains® Weeping Cherry onto sturdy, upright stems of Prunus serrula, a Chinese Cherry Tree, which has superbly attractive glossy, rich red-brown, peeling bark, and adds an extra dimension to the tree. This trunk supports the tree and allows it to cascade downwards freely. These trees are always in high demand, especially with the modern love of Asian-themed gardens. Order right away, or our stock will be gone.