Looking out my office window this morning, I spied a very visible sign of wind damage: a large limb on a Bradford Pear tree in the front parking lot peeled off like a banana peel. It happened last evening, landing on a woman’s car from what I hear. It reminds me why I hate Bradford pear trees.
They’re everywhere, for one. Way overdone. They stink to high heaven when blooming. They also lack strength. Any little puff of wind will shred them. They also have the habit of dying too young: you’ll be lucky to get 20 years out of them.
Why do so many people plant them? They’re tolerant of many types of soil. They also grow very quickly – at the expense of strength. But who wants to go to the trouble of planting a tree if its only going to die in 20 years?
I wish our area builders were a little more creative with their landscaping decisions. I wish we’d see more of what is Raleigh’s city symbol: the mighty willow oak (Quercus phellos). If we want to build a city with a future, we should be using oaks instead of Bradford pears. Too many times developers go for the short-term gain.
I just love that dead-fish stink of their flowers. My neighbors across the street have one, and it reeks in the spring. The only thing worse than one bradford pear is a mass planting — it makes the whole area smell like a fish cannery.
Give me the willow oaks, please.
I’m in an older north Raleigh neighborhood, built in the late 1970’s. Oaks rule here. My 0.6 acre yard has several good sized ones. They survived that big tornado that ripped right through here, right up my front yard, in the 1980’s.
Pear trees look nice when they are young but yes they are overused.
Biodiversity would be nice. Instead of replacing one species with another, why not mix it up?
It’s all for me blog, me holly jolly blog.
Here’s a picture of how bradford pears fared during Hurricane Isabel. J and I took that picture when we went east to do emergency radio communications.
— Tanner