I just put in a sour cherry tree this spring and so far so good.. Here's the start:
I put the dirt around it so that there was a bowl for the water to build up in to water the tree.
Then I added weed block:
And mulch around it, being careful to not have the mulch built up right on the trunk. Also, you need to be careful that the dirt/mulch isn't covering the graft point because you don't want the host tree to lose control of the tree size, assuming you have dwarf root host.
With this, I can just take the hose and let it run into the 'bowl' for a long time to make sure it is watered deep. Seems to be making a happy tree so far. :)
Oh, one other thing I did was to use bamboo stakes to help hold the tree in place against wind, as well as to train the lead branch to grow straight up. I won't leave that bamboo there after this summer... but I want to give it time to grow the roots to stabilize it before it gets stressed. After that, it needs to deal with the wind to make it stronger.
