Where To Buy Bradford Pear Trees

Plant the Bradford Pear in full sun. It will grow in most soils, including heavy clay, where many other trees will fail. It is hardy, disease-resistant and grows in almost any kind of soil. It is also drought-resistant and needs very little care or attention to be constantly beautiful. It has few pests, and it is very resistant to fire-blight, a serious disease of edible pears. Once established it is very drought resistant, and it needs no special pruning or care to be a constantly beautiful addition to your garden.

When establishing a new garden, attractive, fast-growing trees are a must. The goal is to create a look of maturity quickly, while longer living, but slower growing, trees develop. The Bradford Pear is an ideal tree for this purpose, as well as being an attractive flowering tree. It is also very tolerant of urban conditions and difficult soils, and a top choice for smaller gardens with limited room for trees. The Bradford Pear is a selected form of a species of pear tree that grows in China. It is related to edible pears, but the fruit is small, hard and inedible. Most trees produce few or no pears. Your Bradford Pear tree will grow quickly. Young trees can add 4 feet of new growth each year, so that within a few years you have an attractive specimen of a substantial size.

Experts say all native species in South Carolina will struggle as long as the Bradford pear tree survives. Even other trees that are not threatened for survival, such as oaks, maples and hickories, are being out-competed.

The best weapon, according to experts, is to cut down the trees, and some states are providing incentives for removal. Clemson University in South Carolina has offered to exchange five cut-down Bradford pears with native trees.

Bradford pear trees became popular because of their affordability. The trees cost about $5 to $150, depending on the size during purchase. Comparatively, planting other types of trees costs can range from $100 to nearly $2,500.

You may celebrate a family milestone by planting a tree in the backyard, but waiting years for it to grow can feel agonizing. Some trees can take over 100 years to reach maturity, but a Bradford pear tree can grow 15 feet in just eight to 10 years.

Because of the soft trunk, homeowners will need to keep up with pruning the top branches to minimize the risk of splitting. Also, the branches of this tree grow sharply upward, which also makes it easier for the tree to split. Bradford pear trees have a short lifespan of up to 25 years, in part due to their inclination to split.

Starting on Oct. 1, 2024, nurseries in South Carolina will be prohibited from selling the trees. The state will become the second in the country to ban them behind Ohio, where sales will cease in 2023.

As birds and squirrels dined on Bradford pears and their waste allowed cross-breeding of Callery pear trees, the fast-growing, early-flowering trees have begun to choke out the natural landscape in fields across the state and country.

States are now able to exercise the option to ban the growing, selling, and planting of Bradford pear trees. Ohio was the first state to enact such a ban on the tree. If you are unsure of the status in your area, contact your local cooperative extension office for information.

Bradford pear trees, also called Callery pears, bloom earlier in the year, giving them an advantage over native species and allowing them to take their resources for its own. The trees have become so ubiquitous in Indiana that in some places you can find entire fields of them.

Those flowers are part of the problem. They bring with them small fruits, which birds eat, and fly and deposit the seeds elsewhere. Because Bradford pear trees bloom so much earlier in the year than native trees, they drop their seeds when there aren't native competitors. Then, they take over.

Olson points out that many of the native alternatives are also sturdier than Bradford pear trees, which are famously fragile in the face of strong winds and storms. This may also be an opportunity to support local landscaping businesses, Abraham adds.

Most reputable tree nurseries also shy away from stocking and planting Bradford pear trees. Keeping existing Bradford pears also could cause problems, as they cross-pollinate with other trees in the area, forming thorny thickets that can choke the life out of other, more environmentally friendly species of tree that may be on your property.

Invasive plants, like Bradford pear trees, are spreading like weeds across Kansas and Missouri - and wiping out food for birds, butterflies and other wildlife. Kansas News Service reporters Celia Llopis-Jepsen and Blaise Mesa explain the problem.

Check out these images compiled by Armbrust, who coordinates rural forestry at the Kansas Forest Service. These show just how fast the pears are spreading across the state and beating out local trees, shrubs and wildflowers.

Whether you live in Kansas or Missouri, you can sign up here, then chop down a Callery pear and submit a photo of yourself standing next to it. Those who do can choose among a variety of native trees, such as serviceberry, river birch, green hawthorn and chinkapin oak, and pick it up at a participating site.

Yes, even 1,000 dead Callery pears are a drop in the bucket compared to the number of these trees that are growing across those two states. But part of the goal is simply to spread the word about the havoc that the trees wreak.

Native to Asia, the white-flowered tree with a distinctive smell was introduced to the U.S. in the early 20th century. Bradford pears can breed with other types of pear trees and spread in natural forests to replace native trees and create food deserts for birds, according to Oten.

One notorious tree variety is the Bradford pear, which is easily identified by its decorative white blooms. But you can't judge a book by its cover in this instance, as the blooms are often accompanied by an unattractive smell, which has been compared to dead fish and urine, USA Today reported. If the smell wasn't bad enough, Bradford pear trees are also dangerous to surrounding wildlife and "choke out other plants," the outlet reported. If you notice this tree growing in your yard, plant experts want you to consider cutting it down.

Bradford pear trees are native to China and Vietnam, having been introduced to the U.S. in the 1960s by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The introduction was positive at first, as the trees were both disease-resistant and able to grow in different climates and different soil varieties. "We thought, 'Gee, this is a panacea,'" Mike Dirr, professor of horticulture at the University of Georgia, told NPR. "You can stick it into any planting space in an urban situation, in concrete-heavy soils, clay soils, limestoney soils, acid soils, and it's gonna grow."

However, when Bradford pears started sprouting up all over, crowding out other plants while providing limited food to insects, and simply falling apart due to weak branches, experts learned that the trees were creating a larger problem.

Issues are so severe that some U.S. states have banned the sale and cultivation of Bradford pear trees. According to USA Today, new sales of the tree will be banned in South Carolina (where the tree is most commonly planted) as of Oct. 1, 2024. Pennsylvania enacted a ban on both sale and cultivation, effective Feb. 2024. Nurseries and landscapers in Ohio must phase out the sale of these trees over the next five years, as Bradford pears were placed on the invasive species list in Jan. 2018.

The statewide bans do not make it illegal to have these trees in your yard or keep what you already have, according to a Clemson News press release; however, you may want to consider getting rid of your Bradford pear tree, which David Coyle, assistant professor of Forest Health and Invasive Species at Clemson University, compared to a "noxious weed."

Once established, Bradford pear chokes out many native trees and shrubs. It grows in many soil conditions and does not require high levels of soil fertility or quality, allowing it to grow in many places where other trees fail to survive or thrive.

Callery pear was thought to be beneficial due to its resistance to fireblight and its potential to be crossbred with European pear in order to increase fruit production. In the 1960s, scientists recognized its potential as an ornamental tree and Bradford pear quickly became one of the most popular trees east of the Mississippi River.

Bradford pear became popular not only for its abundance of showy white flowers in early spring, but also for its quick growth, medium height at maturity, and for the deep-red color of its foliage in autumn. These trees were widely planted not only by gardeners and homeowners but also by municipalities and landscape manager as a street tree.

All those white blooming trees you see everywhere... do you think they are pretty? If you knew what they actually represent, you would choke on your morning coffee and gag on your scrambled eggs. All those white blooming trees you see now are an environmental disaster happening right before your very eyes.

However, the fact that Bradford pear trees are short lived and dangerous is not the real reason that these trees are such a disaster. The problem is that these trees are in fact not sterile. No two Bradford pears will ever reproduce among themselves, but they do cross pollinate with every other pear tree out there, including the Cleveland Select pear trees that were meant to be the salvation of flowering pears everywhere. The introduction of other pear varieties has compounded the problem to the point where it is almost too late to rectify.

Because of the cross pollination problem, pear trees have now proliferated exponentially across our environment. And, to make matters worse, the evil offspring has reverted to the ancient Chinese Callery pears which form impenetrable thorny thickets that choke out the life out of pines, dogwoods, maples, redbuds, oaks, hickories, etc. 781b155fdc