One of the more popular shade and landscape tree in our growing region is the Bradford pear.
Homeowners like the trees because they grow in almost any soil type and have an attractive globe shape, and tops on their list is the seasonal interest they contribute to a landscape. White blossoms cover a tree in the spring, glossy green leaves provide shade in the summer, and in the fall the tree’s striking mahogany fall leaf color makes for an eye-catching array.
Readers might be interested—possibly skeptical—when learning that the Bradford pear is on several states Plant Pest Lists.
South Carolina leads the charge by declaring the Bradford pear an unwieldy menace and has taken the severe action to ban the tree effective October 1, 2024. In South Carolina Bradfords have taken over open fields, invaded farmlands, riverbanks, and ditches, displaced native species and damaged ecosystems (news. clemson.edu).
The Bradford pear specific name is Pyrus calleryana, a Callery pear. Bradford pears are native to East Asia. They were introduced to the United States for their resistance to blight. As a Callery pear, it was hybridized with the European pear to increase fruit production.
While Bradford pears are highly sterile, producing few if any fruit, they do, however, pollinate other pear trees, which produce fruit. It is the seed that results from these hybridizations that is causing problems in South Carolina. The seed is spread by birds over wide swaths; the hybrid trees have undesirable growth habits, and it is the sheer number of the trees that sprout in undesirable clusters that causes the problem.
Bradfords in these areas have the characteristics of a noxious weed. Noxious weeds are designated as a plant that is damaging to crops or ecosystems.
South Carolina tackled the problem with a bounty program that encourages homeowners to replace Bradford pears with desirable native trees. The program gives homeowners the incentive to remove Bradford pears and replace them with native trees like Shumard oak, yellow poplar, persimmon, Eastern red cedar, or sweet bay magnolia. Exchanges of natives for Bradfords can be done with evidence of the Bradford’s destruction.
Before West Texas homeowners fret about Bradford pears in their landscapes, consider that growing conditions here are vastly different from those of Southeast U.S. Our arid / semi-arid conditions do not support the proliferation of this type of tree, giving little chance of its becoming a nuisance.
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
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