Soils and Composts is pretty tame........typically just compost wackos enthusing about their product and questions of what to fill raised beds with. The most heated discussions I've encountered have been on the Container Gardening forum. Some vitriolic enough to get the entire thread pulled!!

I'm not sure it makes any difference what forum you visit - you will always encounter someone who does not take easily to the introduction of horticultural methodology that counters their established way of doing things. It's the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality and one that fails to realize "ain't broke" does not translate to 'flourish' or 'thrive'. And they are willing to defend against all arguments their right to maintain the status quo!!

Yep to gardengal48 and others. I've gone around and around with "rose nuts" (and other people resistant to different information) before, have no plans for a repeat performance. When there is an emotional attachment to any concept it may never be let go of.

I wouldn't deny yourself the coast redwood in Britain as native examples grow way down the California coast into areas where they tower over chaparral from beside the streams that make their presence possible. Long-established planted specimens also exist well beyond the native outer coastal area in California, where it is much hotter and more arid than you will be seeing where you are.

I like callery pear and think it is a fine tree as long as you dont top them

Since it is considered a "severe invasive threat" in NC, I would seriously question its being a "fine tree", topped or not.

As mentioned previously, so many, many other better choices.

yes there are better choices but I dont hate callery pear which would you rather have callery pear or tree of heaven? my favorites are japanese methley plum and eastern redbud

"which would you rather have callery pear or tree of heaven?"

Since both are aggressive invasive species, I'd opt out of both. Any native species would be preferable - dogwoods, redbud, hawthorn, serviceberry, magnolia would all offer similar flowering attributes. Or you could go with maples, tupelo, oxydendrum, fringe tree, hickory, silverbell, various oaks or a whole host of non-native, non-invasive options. Pyrus calleryana would be at the very bottom of my list of choices.

It's sad though, being locked into one way of doing things. Having been tossed into a positively scary situation where I am a complete novice again, I feel quite invigorated (and alarmed) at the prospect of learning a whole new heap of stuff. I have lost track of how many cherished notions have bit the dust...a bit like finding your teenage diaries (wince) and being confronted with all those confident (rubbish) assertions you have trumpeted to the world. I will say though, most of the more progressive and curious posters have vanished from the ARF - I think a few transferred over to a breeding forum and others just gave up since it was going through a dull phase.

Pear in top of last two photos has multiple main limbs all coming from the same point on the trunk, making it a prime candidate for future serious failure - as Callery pears often are.

In addition to producing a displeasing (dumb looking) hedged appearance the topping of all of that planting may be encouraging a spreading of the crowns, causing the trees to be yet more prone to splitting. It will certainly be producing additional forking - as though Callery pears weren't usually full of bad branch forks to begin with.

We won't try to imagine the odor coming from multiple Callery pears of some size blooming together.

But they are gorgeous older plantings. you have never seen trees lined up in a row before? Since the trees were topped previously the mail limbs are stronger, older and less prone to breakage now. And it regained its beautiful shape.

These trees are very large and the trunks are about 24 inched around. I would not worry about them breaking or splitting apart any time soon.

Will you Callery pear lovers at least concede the point that they offer nothing, or very nearly nothing, to wildlife, insects, pollinators, etc. with their perpetually glossy, unblemished leaves, etc? I have my own list of guilty pleasures too-a handful of non-native plants which I nonetheless continue to cherish. But without getting into it too much, they all offer-at the very least-considerable nesting and roosting cover to birds, serious timber potential, and so on. Callery pear....exactly what other lifeforms does this plant support? Hint: I already know the answer!

+oM

Well, apparently the birds love the seeds!

That how they became invasive apparently.

All of Gods creations are beautiful.

And aren't the unblemished glossy leaves just stunning!

Here is another pic for good cheer! :)

But they are gorgeous older plantings

Gorgeous is something else, this looks like a commercial orchard

you have never seen trees lined up in a row before?

See above

Since the trees were topped previously the mail limbs are stronger, older and less prone to breakage now

Bigger branches are heavier

And it regained its beautiful shape

I see a lingering truncated appearance - they look like wine glasses or tulips

These trees are very large

A 'Bradford' in Philadephia measured 55' x 8/6'' x 50' during 1980. (That's height x trunk circumference x average crown spread).

I would not worry about them breaking or splitting apart any time soon

There is no basis for this assumption. And a mishap never is a problem until it happens, is it?

I should mention that there are other types of trees planted next to these but i did not get them in frame. We also have a Ginko with stunning yellow leaves.

Embothrium(USDA 8 Sunset 5 WA), I do not like callery pear planted in rows either however they are good in larger landscapes

tlbean2004(Z7), read this:

Reasons not to top trees - Logan's Gardening - Google Docs

read more articles at: logansgardening.tk

tlbean, I was wondering if you or anyone else would say that-that quite clearly, the fruits of Callery pear do indeed "support wildlife", hence their spread throughout creation. I'd next like you to consider the long-term effect-that of one exotic species being so successful at this type of proliferation that in the long run, it ends up harming the very wildlife that initially assisted in its spread. No, I don't have a crystal ball, but I think we do need to understand these long-term implications. What looks "good" up front may look very different down the road. As to "all of God's creations are beautiful", yes I do agree with the root notion there, religious orthodoxy excepted, but it would be a mistake to therefore believe that any one of these creations, moved will-nilly to another part of the earth, would have no negative consequences. Maybe you still disagree, and maybe someone should offer you a whole bunch of old-world pythons running loose in Florida!

+oM

Have seen expanses... in the neighborhood of tens to hundreds of acres of neglected ground in AL/TN - and more here in KY - that are rapidly becoming virtual pear forests, and constantly find 'volunteer' pear seedlings everywhere around my farmstead and orchard.

I'm located in a small town near Ft. Campbell Army base on the TN/KY state line. Back around 1985, a troop transport plane crashed at Gander, Newfoundland, killing 249 service members. As a memorial, 249 Bradford pears were planted, in a regimented fashion, in a park at the south end of town. Within 10 years, it became quite evident that choice of memorial trees was not good... by 15 years, a majority had sustained significant catastrophic canopy loss, and to add insult to injury, the planting became a haven for blackbirds, which roosted there by the millions during fall migration... with massive accumulation of bird feces fostering the growth of -gasp!- Histoplasma capsulatum, a dimorphic yeast which is a potential human health hazard. They roped that park off like a hazardous waste spill site... there's no telling how much $$$ they spent removing trees, removing topsoil, replacing topsoil (they could have just tilled all the bird poop under and replanted grass), ultimately planting some sort of conical dwarf conifer in a regimented fashion as a memorial to the servicemen who died at Gander... in a footprint probably 1/100th of the original planting of pears .

I'll guarantee that you could sample the soil beneath almost any of the plethora of callery pears in residential settings around here, and isolate Histoplasma...it's endemic in this part of the world, and those densely-foliated and tardily dehiscent trees are much favored as roosting sites for migrating blackbirds/starlings and the like.

'tens to hundreds of acres of neglected ground', 'abandoned tree lots' - this sort of thing simply does not happen in the UK. Even the meanest bits of land can sell for $15,000 per acre (increasing many hundreds of times more if development is allowed) - my 5.36 acre poplar wood cost $50,000+ We often see odd corners of fields (which are called pightles) or little bits of verge...and, of course, the sides of roads (although they are the domain of the highways agency)...but nothing remotely like the huge expanses of mismanaged land. This, and this alone, gave me pause for thought when considering the US antipathy towards many non-natives as 'noxious weeds' (there are thousands of them). Land mass in the UK is 1/40 the size of the US...and yet, our crowded little island sustains a population which is 1/5th of the US (60 million) - 8 times more people in the same area...so even the most uninhabited parts of the country, in the Scottish highlands (although there are sad tales of forced evictions and enclosures - the population was much higher than now), there is literally nowhere which can be termed abandoned, vacant, unused.

lucky_p, that's what I call a great post. Everyone should read and re-read lucky's post, I did.

I do agree^. It sounds from reading this that Callery pear is basically doing what common buckthorn is doing here-really and truly inhibiting any semblance of a normal, even reasonably native plant community.

Hey Camp, two things: I think your British culture has always had a healthy attitude towards horticulture generally, at least compared to where I grew up, and that just the average person has more knowledge than would be the case here. But I wonder-do you agree and if so, do you see things changing, now that everybody coming up must do their work one-handed (other hand clutching phone)?

+oM

No...but I am seriously pissed at the parsimonious hacking away at a whole section of vocational education - horticulture, like many skilled trades, has been diminished to the point of invisibility and I fear that the future of the Brit gardening tradition is in the hands of amateurs and dilettantes. No big worries about serious science - although it is telling that botany has now been subsumed into the vague 'plant science' - but horticulture as a varied set of skills - the raising of nursery stock, amenity gardening has been squeezed into the laughable (to my mind) concept of pure design (see idiocies of Chelsea et al) or the mindless plopping of bedding plants grown on an industrial scale by unskilled, low-waged workers into council beds, and essentially outside housework (mow, blow, trim). The now vanished horticultural courses I did, at a college which has since been sold for 'development' is leading us all to a dark age of endless privet, petunias and fake grass. And 5000 less apprenticeships every year. Sucks!

You did ask?

But yep, not altogether unaware of the antics in Wisconsin, re. public education, (those pinko teachers!) so none of this is strange and unfamiliar to you, I guess.

Oddly enough, everyone in my vicinity seems to be in some sort of illness deathgrip except me and my eldest. We were congratulating ourselves on our robust health and could only conclude that many years of dibbling about in soil (he's a gardener too) has supercharged our immune systems to the point of immortality - I truly cannot recall suffering a day's illness (apart from botched surgery in childbirth) in the last 40 years. So, I dunno - pros and cons for the microbial stuff.

Interesting and no, not altogether surprising. I enjoy reading the blog of one "The Phytophactor"-not sure if you're supposed to do that, mentioning something like this-but anyway, he's a retired botany teacher, having done most of his life's work in Chicagoland somewhere, I think. He indeed laments the rapid loss of stature of botany as a major everywhere stateside. And the uneasy dynamic that now, more than ever, exists between higher education administration and those who do the actual educating. Bad, bad times, and like you, I see it as a sort of new dark age of sorts. Maybe the overall level of what I'll just call landscaping-I know for some that word has a much more limited meaning-isn't so bad here. I do tire of seeing the same Knockout Roses paired with the same Perovskia. The same endless expanse of daylilys and honestly, some of the grasses plantings are already annoying to me! But depending on area and all the other usual factors, there can be some interesting and creative stuff.

There is though, plenty of mow n blow action everywhere, where it is clear that landscaping is and never was thought of as anything more than commodity. No process behind it really, just the mow n blow guys overseeing it's orderly deterioration. The landscape gets done right after the siding guys and the masons clear out, and that's the best it ever looks, gradually taking on its true role as catcher and holder of plastic shopping bags and water bottles. See, I'm a cheery fellow too! Oh, as to health, well, allI can say is I actually have always felt exactly as you describe, thinking my life spent largely outdoors, and largely within some kind of vegetation and or natural area, has conferred some kind of immortality upon me, and for quite a while, it has seemed so. I just took a turn towards the humble though, having recently decided that coughing for two months straight probably isn't normal. So right now, following chest x-rays, my prospects are, bacterial pneumonia, some kind of fungal thing like Blastomycosis, a tough customer itself, and lung cancer. I've never before so hope that I have bacterial pneumonia!

+oM

Ah bugger - that's an almighty slap the fates have dished out there - sincere hopes for the lesser prognosis.

Thanks. My outlook is positive. At 59, I'm in really good shape otherwise. But yeah, got to get past this.

+oM

59 - me too - sending massive psychic hugs.

Wow, what a thread. It's not every day I get to be made aware of a terrifying new zoonotic infectious agent LOL. (well, new to my awareness at least)

I can't stand them but what I find especially remarkable is the willful gluttony of the US nursery industry. They love a cheap to produce plant and hated giving up on those Bradford pears. So what did they do? A lady in my neighborhood mentioned to me that she was planting a 'Cleveland Select' as though I was going to give her a gold star. (Yes, it's sad that this is the only moment one of my neighbors has ever brought something horticultural to my attention, instead of the other way around!) She was all excited that it was an "improved" Bradford, without any of the problems! LOL.

I have to give Resin props for one of the funniest comments ever posted to gardenweb, in this thread:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1714133/cleveland-vs-bradford-pear

I definitely see a difference in them as far as the shape,however what are the pros and cons of each cultivar?

Bradford Pear flowers smell of a mixture of rotten fish and vomit
Cleveland Pear flowers smell of a mixture of vomit and rotten fish

Resin

Campanula,

At the linked article below, there's a fairly representative photograph of what an untended field might well look like within as little as 3-5 years, nowadays, due to the rampant spread of P.calleryana, courtesy of birds spreading the seeds...P.calleryana - invasive

Oh, that is depressing. Anything which is so aggressive in overwhelming other life-forms is seriously out of whack with a functional ecology. Even my poplar plantation, after a few decades of neglect, is busily reverting to a more mixed scrub with oaks, hawthorn, alder, goat willow, blackthorn, dogroses and hazel creeping in around the edges and in any new clearing. Has the timber no utility as biomass even? Tell me about land use in the USA - who, for example, might own that land? Is it totally abandoned? Does the land have no commercial value at all? I am struggling to get my head around the fact that swathes of land are seemingly devoid of management or constructive use - it is not as though that land looks waterlogged or inaccessible.

In the UK, japanese knotweed and rhodendrom ponticum are problematic - often found in places where it would be difficult to plough or on remnants of former huge private estates, some of which have reverted back to the public domain as National Parks - areas where questions of accessibility have generally allowed invasives to flourish because landowners have been unable or unwilling to engage with intractable problems...or public resources have not been available. By and large, the issue of invasive plants is rarely on the radar of the general public - most would be hard-pressed to name a single plant form (but would probably do better with fauna).

Yes, the patterns of land use/ownership are so different here, it would take a small book to really explain it. But here's just one tiny example: One of our city's oldest parks sits on a high bluff over the river, a very historic location for both the native inhabitants and the later European settlers. This park, having originally been mixed oaks, hickories, and others still retains many large old trees. And on one hillside, and area not managed, common buckthorn took hold quite some time back. This isn't "lawn", just a ravine/hillside area that has towering oaks. Such an area, and there are many more, is perfect for inundation by buckthorn and the Tatarian and other non-native honeysuckles so much a part of the flora here now. Without very active management, every nook and cranny becomes so populated by this junk vegetation. And it is thick. One could not walk through it, not one seedling of a native or desirable tree-not even a maple-could sprout and grow in that matrix.

BTW, we once did the cut/treat method on that buckthorn, etc. Trouble is, there was then inadequate followup. No, I was not manager of that project and if it were to occur today, things would most definitely be different, but suffice to say, without serious followup, for a space of at a minimum three years, any such project is sure to fail. One of my son's is having his wooded land treated for the same invasives, and the contractor is indeed doing a great deal of followup. Without that, there is no chance of success.

But this is just a snapshot of what's taking place everywhere you care to look. And my state, and in particular tis part of the state, is one of the hotspots for such invasive issues.

+oM

My understanding is that pear lumber/wood can be prized by luthiers. It's possible that some of these callery seedlings could have growth habit that could be managed to produce a timber crop... but most, probably not.

Farm that we purchased, in southern middle TN, back around 1986, had a large 'timber'-type pear growing in the yard, at the edge of the barnlot... I'm presuming it was a callery of some sort, but perhaps not... with a trunk that I could not reach around, easily 40 ft tall - and with terrific branch structure - evenly distributed and at virtual right angles. Surrounded by a veritable thicket of root suckers for 20-30 ft around. As I recall it now, I think it would likely have yielded a pretty decent 8-10ft butt log, as it was easily that far up to the first branches. At that time, there were no other pears within miles, so far as I was aware... bloomed prodigiously, had great red fall color, but I never saw it produce a single fruit.

There are orchard type pears that grow that big also.

Indeed there are, but most require another pollinator which, if grown in isolation, could explain the lack of fruit.

For sure; there was not even an orchard pear anywhere nearby to provide cross-pollenation.

I'm certain that if it's still in existence...by virtue of development and additional housing that's been erected in the intervening 30 years... there are probably one or more callery pear varieties (and conceivably some orchard pears) in close enough proximity that that one is now producing fruits.

Have seen one 'Orient'(actually, its not that variety, but that's what the property owner called it) fruiting pear here in town, planted by the current owner's grandfather, just after WWII that is very much a 'timber' tree that would likely yield a pretty decent batch of lumber.

This is what most of them end up looking like in most of the US after ice/wind damage
Callery pear vs ice storm

Heh j, nice pic. So, I've been saying that CP is an invasive threat to the south of where I happen to live, and that here it's common buckthorn that is the primary woody invasive scourge, along with a range of non-native honeysuckles. Well, that much is true, but yesterday, I found a bunch of pear escapes at one of our stormwater ponds in a fallow area. I had already scheduled a good deal of cut/treat action for this site, and these pears will simply be added to the list, but it is certainly discouraging to have stumbled across this. So, add east-central Wisconsin to the range of invasive non-native pears.

+oM

referring to j0nd03's pic, what's the problem? LOL

Interesting that there are no american native pear species at all

Whether planted for its own sake or installed initially as a root-stock there's a small fruited, tall growing orchard pear that forms occasional persisting, even landmark specimens here in the West.

"Pyrus communis is widely cultivated and naturalized in temperate and subtropical regions around the world. The evergreen pear, P. kawakamii, is widely cultivated, especially in California. This taxon has recently been included in P. calleryana
(G. Cuizhi and S. A. Spongberg 2003), which is escaped in California.
Some of the ornamental pear cultivars available in North America are
selections of the oriental P. betulifolia Bunge, with fruits less than 1 cm diameter and leaves tomentose or at least slightly hairy proximally. Pyrus betulifolia is frequently used as a grafting stock. The willow-leaved pear, P. salicifolia
Pallas, with densely silvery-pubescent leaves, pendent branches, and
brown, pyriform pomes, is rarely cultivated in North America and is not
known to escape. The Ussurian pear, P. ussuriensis Maximowicz, is
less often cultivated and not known in North America as an escape; it
is distinguished by persistent sepals on the fruit and spinulose-serrate
leaf margins."

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=127801

Wonder if there is any chance of legal action against whoever sold them or continues to sell them as sterile....it is obviously a lie and I would rather not wait for an almighty being to determine if the lie was a mortal, condemable, sin to get my evens.

Callery pears are very hardy vigorous trees. This means they do well in climates that are less than optimal for these type of trees, such as the hot dry region of Southern California, or the cold climate in the U.K. But in semi-warm humid climates, where Callery pears really thrive, it can really be invasive.

I have never been able to appreciate the tiny little white blossoms when they appear on a Callery pear tree. Maybe it's because of the less-than-pleasant smell that always accompanies them. I think there is some subconscious thing in my brain that takes in the smell and automatically prevents me from being able to notice any aesthetic beauty when I approach the tree.

The petals on the blossoms are also very tiny, so even when it is in full bloom it's not exactly "stunning".

Ever stabbed yourself on a feral callery pear pear thorn? Those things are vicious. The named varieties are thornless but seedlings and rootstocks typically are. So after you cut down a pear, you get a bunch of thorny resprouts.

We Brits have always been fond of thorns - blackthorn, quickthorn, firethorn...and tbh, I find the whiff of elder to be more offensive than p.callereyana. Not disputing anyone's assessment, but those criteria alone (smells and pricks) are not often major drivers of choice. The security hedge has always been of interest to homeowners...and stockproof hedging is even better.

The worst stabbing I ever got was off a Phoenix Canariensis date palm. I simply had no idea these plants were so armed - installing a whopper (just beginning to extend a trunk) for a customer, I stabbed myself viciously through my own palm - the shock - gah!

Lovely. Not to make light of it but it sounds like you were in fact, palmed.

This was taken last year around this time after a wet snow. I saw no other type of plant so thoroughly destroyed. The homeowner lost more than half of the trees in the yard since only callery pears were planted. They aren't invasive this far north, but there's no excuse for those who champion this tree in the southeast due to its invasive potential. Like Tom, I battle buckthorn and expect to do so for the rest of my life, so I can't understand why anyone would encourage others to plant an invasive species. It's a situation where everyone loses in the long run due to others' short-sightedness.

'only Callery pears were planted'...and hereien lies one of the roots of the problem. Because the worst this tree (so far) has been capable of, here in the UK, is boring us to death, I personally don't have any resounding beef against it...but why, with the enormous range of fabulous small trees available for our delight, would anyone choose to grow one species only? That way madness lies as it only takes one pathogen, wind-borne spore, roaming beetle or wayward mite to devastate a garden monoculture.

why, with the enormous range of fabulous small trees available for our delight, would anyone choose to grow one species only?

Lack of imagination or interest - most property owners are not hobbyist gardeners - and a belief that formal effects like shearing of trees and shrubs, planting rows of one kind are sophisticated. Also some are wary of plants they haven't already seen having been proven to be able to grow and persist in their area. I can see some basis for this as both warehouse store plant departments and independent garden centers in my area do stock a lot of marginally hardy or outright tender plants which are often displayed among more cold tolerant kinds, thereby seeming to imply that they are all suitable for year around outdoor use of indefinite duration.

And speaking of warehouse store plant departments, with their tiny range of plant varieties - those operations now have a large percentage of the US nursery stock sales. I have seen post after post on the internet referring to these as "the nursery". Plus in the current market trees are moving so slowly I wonder why any of the large independent outlets here are bothering to stock any kind of a range or quantity of them. And in fact one of the bigger operations in the area did apparently cut way back on these, so that for at least a few years now their "tree line" has been this little area like is routinely seen at warehouse stores.

If you like a nice big Callery pear as an ornamental tree, you might instead consider a fruiting pear growing on its own roots.

Embothrium, I completely agree with your above post.