To start with I HATE BRADFORD PEARS.
The genus Pyrus L., now consist only of pears. The distinctive trait of pears it the stone cells in the fruit that makes it gritty. Originally the genus consisted of many things with fruits that are pomes, including apples, Malus Mill., quince, Cydonia Mill., chokeberries, Photinia Lindl., mountain ash, Sorbus L., and the hybrids of mountain ash and chokeberries, ×Sorbaronia C.K. Schneid.
Did I mention that I HATE BRADFORD PEARS?
The best thing about pears is the fruit, which is generally sweet and high in fiber. The most popular is Bartlett pear, which is a cultivar of common pear, , that has the classic pear shape. Old timers sometime talk about soft pears and hard pears, and as far as I can tell these are just other varieties that respectively ripen early and late, but also have the aforementioned firmness that may just be relative. More recently there as been a craze for Asian pears. These are shaped more like apples and have superior flavor compared to the more familiar pears, but they generally don't ship or keep as well so the bring a premium price. Pears have a major drawback in both being susceptible to diseases such as fire-blight, and blooming relatively early and thus being vulnerable to crop failures caused by late freezes. The damage from both can appear similar as was the case after the Easter freeze in 2007, unless this was just an extra stress that caused an epidemic level of fire-blight as some claimed.
Oh how I HATE BRADFORD PEARS. Let me count the ways.
Bradford pear is a cultivar of Callery pear,Pyruscalleryana Decne., where there are many blooms early in spring that some people strangely find attractive, and the trees have a consistent form where they are all shaped like an egg. This is just happens to be the first mentioned least of an otherwise unranked sequence of the many reasons why I hate Bradford pears. The
blooms have a disgusting odor comparable to stale urine, which suggest
a better although mildly vulgar alliterated common name that somewhat
expresses how I feel when I encounter them. In most years the alleged beauty of the blooms is marred by a frost that prematurely turns them brown. The consistent form of Bradford pears is due to a very poor branch structure that produces narrow crotches that are weak and will eventually cause the trees to split apart. Other cultivars have been developed to minimize but this just seems to increases the fruit set, especially in years without frost when they are in bloom. The fruits are messy both where they drop and where the bird drop them either before or after digestion, but to make it worse resulting widely scattered seed produce seedlings that revert to the species. They are extremely invasive and abandon fields will often be filled with pears before the native pine trees, even if the pine trees are planted. Thanks to this and the extensive ornamental planting soon the will be like belly buttons and opinions, everybody has one whether you like it or not. Unlike the cultivars the species has thorns nearly 2 inches long so no farmers will not knowingly bush-hog a field overgrown with these thorny seedling due to the damage that will be caused to the tractors tires, therefore each plant will have to be removed by hand using a combination of cutting or girdling and herbicides. The seedlings are used for root stock for grafting not only Bradford pears and similar cultivars, but also virtually all the edible pears. It is not uncommon to get suckers from this root stock, and rot originating where the root stock crown was pruned often results in these trees breaking off at the graft or near ground level. The typical landscape design using Bradford pears is one dimensional, in other words they are in a line; the only time I recall being described as one dimensional was taken as a complement was the defensive line of Alabama just before winning the national championship in 1992 where the retort was "Sometimes one dimension is all you need," but this should never apply to landscaping, which ideally requires at least 4 dimensions to allow for the space required after a period of growth. Just look at how many Bradford pear trees have grown together or into power lines (a local power company even plants them under their own lines when they have to replace a tree removed from a customer's yard). Although Bradford pears will often break before reaching a large size the reverted seedling and remaining root stocks could easily become 80 feet tall trees beside being a part of an impenetrable thicket due to all the thorns. This damage being done by the Bradford pear invasion is potentially worse than the combination of Chinese privet, Ligustrumsinense Lour., growing in thickets and spread by birds, multiflora or Japanese rose,Rosamultiflora Thunb., with just spines, tree of heaven, Ailanthusaltissima (Mill.) Swingle, tolerant of forest, and kudzu, and Pueraria montana (Lour.) Merr., which was originally highly promoted and widely spread by the plant industry, but is currently the ubiquitous symbol of an invasive exotic plant.
Don't forget that I HATE BRADFORD PEARS!
The only way I will plant a Bradford pear is for a seemingly obscene profit. Currently price is $10,000 each, compared to $1000 per foot of privet hedge, but this includes everything: the tree, a hole, stakes, mulch, keeping me from applying enough mulch to bury the tree by at least 3 inches over the highest branch tip because in this case if a little is good and way to much is better, and my retainer for at least a decade should you realize the mistake and need the broken pieces and numerous volunteer seedling removed. Why so much? Because...
I HATE BRADFORD PEARS!!!
Please plant something such as a native serviceberry, Amelanchier Medik., instead. A short list of comparable advantages includes white flowers in early spring, edible fruit as good or better than blueberries, and great fall color, besides having better form that provides more winter interest along with less likelihood of limb breakage. Additionally the mature size of serviceberries fits in most landscapes.
