I promise you that the roots will not grow 'straight down'. They will likely end up under the road, under the sidewalk, AND in direct competition with the grass!

Mulch solves the problem of having to mow or trim around the trunk of the tree...among other benefits.

Given what they planted, I'd maintain those mulch volcanoes and build them up high in the summer with plenty of grass mowings. Then when the pears have died, you have the opportunity to replace them with something better ;-)

Resin

:)

What is their downside other than smelly flowers? What would be good for Southwest Ohio?

Serviceberry - Amelanchier x grandiflora 'Autumn Brilliance'

-has the white flowering of the pear but much better scent, very nice fall color, smaller habit perfectly suited for this situation, food for native birds/animals or you for that matter, and will not be a foreign invasive nightmare for your community :)

How wide is the tree lawn? I was assuming very narrow for some reason...

Neither option 1 or 2 makes ANY sense to me. If you really want to keep the pears (which I'm not sure is a really reasonable choice, either), they should be properly mulched. Mulching over the area between the sidewalk and street, will:
-improve soil fertility and texture as the mulch breaks down,
-prevent germination of many weed seeds,
-reduce competition for food and water from grass and weeds,
-reduce erosion,
-help to maintain soil moisture during dry periods,
-often will aid drainage by preventing surface crusting and sealing,
-keep roots cooler during hot summer weather,
-help to moderate soil temperature fluctuations,
-reduce frost-heaving,
-reduce certain soil-borne diseases by preventing soil and fungi from splashing onto foliage,
-reduce potential for soil compaction,
-prevent damage from mowers and trimmers,
-and improve the look of the landscape.

The best answer, though, may still be: 4) What Resin said.

given proper water .. of which mulch is an important variable ... and i will yell.... THE TREE WILL PUT ITS ROOTS WHEREVER IT IS ADVANTAGEOUS FOR THE TREE ...

THAT INCLUDES UNDER THE SIDEWALK.. UNDER THE STREET.. AND PROBABLY INTO THE NEIGHBORS LAWN OVER THE YEARS ... Oops.. forgot to quit yelling ...

if you use the search function.. you ought to find at least a couple thousand posts about pears being one of the most hated trees on this forum .... and any other forum where the name pops up ..

if you are within 100 miles of mansfield OH.. i can recommend you to a great tree farm ...

i prefer oak ... i would stay away from maple and sycamore .. but that is personal [and they tend to heave sidewalks and ruin lawns.. given 50 years or so ...]

you have seen trees that have fallen over and taken a root mass with them.. roots do not go down.. they spread .... and hence the problem with sidewalks ...

google the following for lots of pix: roots of trees blown over by wind

or copy/paste this: http://www.google.com/search?sclient=img&pq=trees+blown+over+by+wind&hl=en&ds=i&cp=9&gs_id=1s&xhr=t&q=roots+of+trees+blown+over+by+wind&pf=i&um=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&pbx=1&oq=roots+of+trees+blown+over+by+wind&aq=f&aqi=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=963&bih=949

there is really no limit to street trees ... other than killing those pears ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Oh, I missed your question about what the pear's downside is. Basically, they have a pretty much identical list of problems as Bradfords do. So here's a partial list:
-very invasive (they damage the environment)*
-weak wooded (they commonly fall apart at a fairly early age)
-generally short lived (because they fall apart)
-smell bad when in bloom
-way too common (people who don't know better plant them way too frequently)
-cause loss of opportunity to enjoy a much better choice.

* Their invasive potential in Ohio is being recognized at an exponential pace in recent years.

below is a pdf link to wade & gatton tree farm in mansfield ...

here is a link to there tree selections sans acer .. aka maple ...:

http://wadeandgattonnurseries.com/trees/other-trees

late march.. early april.. you might be able to get a bare root fully dormant tree out of their coolers.. for immediate planting.. at a much more reasonable price than those potted and BB trees listed in the pdf ... or maybe that was a personal favor from my hosta buddy.. van wade ... cant hurt to ask

the reason your guy planted a pear.. is because someone paid him to get rid of some stock.. lol ..

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: a very educational read

Having worked for a municipal forestry dept. since 1980, I have observed that roots are far less inclined to grow under streets compared to under sidewalks. It still happens, just not nearly as much. Here I'm talking about full-fledged paved streets with concrete curb and gutter, etc. An old gravel road, the situation might be very different.

FWIW..........+oM

looks like the pros and cons of mulch have been discussed as well as the cons of the pears. Pears are popular trees here in SW OH. I live in Centerville and we have them planted along busy streets in a 2 foot wide tree lawn. And we have a Arborist as the city Tree Guy - sorta make you wonder sometimes.

If it were me and I could do this without getting into a tiff with your city - I'd replace them on my property with some Ulmus parviflora - Lacebark Elm. Berns in Middletown or Natorps in Mason would be good places to start. Again knowing the size of the tree lawn would be helpful with making suggestions.
Marshall

Ulmus parvifolia, not parviflora - sorry 'bout that.
Marshall

I knew pear was a bad word around here but there's no need to attack my original post. I know the benefits of mulching. I came home to the trees already having been planted around my neighborhood, so although it would have been nice if the homeowners had been consulted, there's not much to do except make the best of what we have. Sure, it might be nice if they die, but you're not the one paying for their eventual replacement.

We have a curb and gutter setup and the grassy strip is 6 feet wide. The ideal mulch ring would go to the dripline which in this case will easily meet or exceed the boundaries of the grassy strip. It seems to me that would look silly, and that was my point in asking the original question.

Mulching does not entirely solve the issue of having to mow or trim around the tree trunk since we know the mulch should be away from the trunk/crown and grass will always grow between the edge of the mulch and the trunk/crown. Any suggestions on keeping the grass out of that zone (chemical or otherwise) are welcome.

How long has the tree been in the ground at your house? If it is a new transplant I'd keep the mulch. I do not like the idea of mulching the entire tree lawn though. I much prefer a 3-4" wide mulch ring to allow a lot of grass to grow and fill in the area in that situation if the tree is well established. If the tree is young and small and you really want to help out your community, you could remove the tree yourself by literally pulling it out of the ground and plant something better. At 6' of space for a tree lawn, your planting options are extensive.

John

About 9 days. I will just pull back the mulch away from the trunk, disposing of any excess if too deep and keeping the mulch ring of decent size while leaving as much grass as possible in the strip. As I mentioned before, it's a bit late to rip them out. Replacing them would be an HOA expense, and we're doing enough of that already from other trees planted (and probably improperly mulched/maintained) years ago.

Btw, serviceberry is planned for our eventual landscape around the house. I know several Cincinnatians who love it.

Gotcha... hey I would be lying if I said I didn't think callery pears were not pretty in flower and some are borderline incredible in fall color.

And I agree with your plan for the mulch. I would do the same.

John

I actually put mulch all the way up to the base of the trunk. I leave it extremely thin at that location (<.5 but it seems to still do an excellent job of keeping weeds from growing at the base tree. by tapering mulch down near zero height trunk all disadvantages maybe providing some cover for rodents are removed. i have never had a single rodent issue bark tree while using this method. when pop up in my mulched areas pull them or spot treat with generic glyphosate. hundreds trees take care chemical treatment is necessity without lot weed-pulling volunteers average home lawn think routine hand pulling would probably trick much effort.>

i keep weeds and grass out of my beds with properly used roundup ... check out the link ...

it will have no effect if properly applied ...

key word: PROPERLY

you suspected the pear hatred ... didnt you ..

read the story at the link.. and understand.. if you think you will be at this house for a decade or two ... it will be well worth the investment.. to install a heritage tree ... rather than one that will eventually mature and break down ... in ten years.. your tree will be the master of the block.. well the other peeps are dealing with those pears ...

if it was planted within the last year or so.. it should be easy to move it out somewhere else on the property ... and put an heirloom in that prime space ...

and keep in mind.. we all post to help you.. no one replies.. simply to make you mad ... [well there are/were a few ... but ignore them]

Merry Christmas ....

ken

ps: the most important reason to mulch .. IMHO .. is to keep the idiot with the weedwhip .. as far away from the tree as possible ... once that is accomplished.. it also aid in water retention ... and reduction of soil heat ... the ring on this type of tree .. IMHO ... is 6 feet ... i wonder if i can find a pic of my hated cleveland select ...

pps: i spent a half hour nearly going blind.. looking for a pic of mine.. maybe i deleted it ... being so embarrassed and all ... lol ..

here is a pic of a perfect mulch ring .. IMHO .. its a function of the branches.. my eyes.. and the height of the riding mower ... i dont want my eyes poked out.. my hat knocked off.. i dont want to use the weedwhip .. and the tree needs the moisture on my sand ... it is useless to have a 3 color tree.. and limb it up for grass.. ergo.. this is one of the few trees that isnt trimmed to 6 feet min ...

{{gwi:354119}}

apparently i am just a shadow of what i once was.. look close.. lol ..

Here is a link that might be useful: link

So in terms of the fragility due to the branching style, the aristocrat is not really an improvement over the Bradford?

I think the best thing the aristocrat has over bradford is it has a more narrow canopy with slightly better branching. The weak wood is just part of all callery pear's DNA. With a big enough gust of wind or any and I want to stress this ANY ice, it will lose branches. Around my house the aristocrats have done much better in thunderstorms than bradfords due to the more upright growth. They are still fairly young, though.

A little mulch around the trunk is OK but keep it to a minimum. My trees with mulch rings are anything between mulched to the trunk and mulch stopping about 6" from the trunk. Personally, with new plantings, I mulch to the trunk for 1 growing season, then move the mulch away from the trunk and increase the width of the mulch ring by at least 1-2'

And generic glyphosate is your best friend ;)

an improvement on a bad thing.. does not mean that it follows that the result is better ...

an improvement on a carp sandwich.. might be a fine hand ground mustard.. but it is still a carp sandwich.. dont ya think ... lol [that's dyslexic typing]

i mean really.. you take one of the worst branched trees in the world.. and you improve it a bit .. SO WHAT ... its still weak wooded.. poorly crotched.. and .. well.. everything else ...

the only thing they havent tried .. to improve it.. is a fine hand ground mustard ....

ken

Concentrated feeder roots will tend to start at the drip-line, go out from there. So you will not catch these if you end the mulch where the drip-line starts. And it is out where these new roots are that mulching will be most helpful, not back near the trunk.

Mulch inside the drip line will still accomplish many of the good things I listed above and especially reduce damage from lawnmowers/trimmers. In this case, mulch beyond the drip line (on top of the sidewalk or road) will do nothing. Few larger yard/landscape trees are mulched passed their dripline (yeah, they might benefit from it, but it's just not usually what happens).

Yes, we're obviously looking at a compromise here, and in most cases of mulching of trees. And it's not as though the tree will not still perform adequately even though it's mulching parameters be suboptimal.

Genetic, were I in your place, I suspect I too would simply make the best of the situation you were handed. That partially assuming there are other places where you can plant different, more well-suited trees in your yard.

The pears became popular because they have some good attributes. While true that they also have some bad points, we're simply not talking about life/death here. Also, and I think the same is true of Norway maple, while it's invasiveness is undeniable, this is mostly a problem where there is a place to be invaded. IOWs, smack-dab in the middle of a city, with no high quality wooded areas nearby, where's it going to invade into? Perhaps more true with NM.....birds aren't depositing that tree's seeds hither and yon. But still........

+oM

I've seen millions of small Norway maples on urban park land here, with old tight city lots all around. Any plant that produces quantities of nuisance seedlings can be a problem anywhere there is some available soil.

Bboy, I'd maintain that even in those cases, little damage is being done. Where I get concerned is when truly troublesome invasives, which these both can be, are in proximity to actual rural forestland. That may be the case on the sites you speak of, and if so, yes that's bad.

In my town, many Norway maples have indeed volunteered in old ravines, etc. But they are nice trees in their own right. And they do not threaten high quality woodlands in doing so. YMMV. In any case, OP gets it, we mostly don't like to see Callery pear being planted. Which he's not!

+oM

Invasive trees planted in cities quickly send seeds, via birds etc, into forestland or more natural habitats outside those cities. In fact, most invasive infestations originate from populated areas.

Brandon, I agree that that is happening, but primarily, with species having berries or other fruit structures that birds actually eat. Not N. maples for instance, but definitely buckthorn.

This has become a side discussion of a side discussion at this point. I doubt anyone on this forum spends as much of their professional life dealing with invasives as I do. I'm no lover of these plants. But in the case of trees bearing samaras or other hard winged seeds, wind dispersal is the M.O. Not birds.

For my part, I'm just happy that so far, in my neck of the woods, pears have not yet become a problem. I'd hate to see that.

+oM

Since callery pears (which is what we were originally talking about) are definitely spread by birds, as well as other animals, planting them, even deeply, into a developed area is totally ineffective in keeping them from being invasive.

Also, even seeds with heavier wind-sown seed can be a threat to natural areas. Their wide-range spread may take a little longer (in some cases) than the spread of bird-sown species, but that's no reason to be any less concerned about a known invasive species. Even plants that spread mostly through vegetative means can, in a few cases, be quite invasive (think kudzu).

I was able to get out to the 3 trees planted so far in my court since the weather got favorable. I pulled the mulch back from the bark so I could get a better idea of how the trees were planted. Unfortunately, and not suprisingly, it looks like the root ball level is 3-4 inches above ground for 2 of them and 5-6 inches above ground for the other. No wonder the mulch piles are so high and no wonder they could stay that way -- without the mulch the trees would look like big plugs in the ground. Not only is the root ball too high, the hole that was dug was no wider than the root ball. Should I recover the top of the root ball with mulch since it's so high above ground? Is there any other remedy for the builder's landscaper to do now other than replanting and is spring the best timing to take action (ground is not frozen yet)?

I should have said I still need to find the root flare on these trees to see if they are indeed planted too high. So it comes down to this: If the root flare is not too high above ground, should I remove all mulch and soil above the flare now, or should I leave it covered until spring? (Trees were planted a couple weeks ago; ground is not frozen yet.)

Find the flare before doing anything else, then report back with your findings :) In some cases there can be 8"+ of soil above the flare and what you thought was "high" actually puts the flare below grade

^^^ Yup. We nearly always end up with the ball sitting high, or what looks high to some. But the root flare is and must be the only determinant of planting depth. I do not agree with some revisionist thinking on mulching which holds it that mulch on top of the ball is a problem. A thin layer will do no harm.

But find those root flares! ;^)

+oM

Wisconsitom, many birds (and other animals) do eat maple samaras, and move them around - and there are plenty of other ways for them to move long distances, such as collecting at the base of car windshields, in the back of trucks, etc. Those may not be the dispersal modes that maple seeds are "designed" for, but they do happen.

But more importantly IMO, small urban and suburban natural areas can be very important as habitat refuges for a variety of wildlife, and they tend to be hard-hit by invasive plants due to the local propagule pressure. When I was studying Norway maple in the Midwest, I found many urban and suburban natural areas that were dominated by that species, with very low species diversity compared to other, un-invaded areas.

OT, I know, but you brought it up :-).

Good points, Saccharum. It's kinda funny how I must seem to be defending invasive plants in this thread. As I think I said above, my job involves fighting against them a great deal.

Now to take this a bit further off topic, the very fact that many of our animal and bird species are able to use these plants as food is one of the primary reasons for their spread. I think some honesty needs to creep back into the invasives conversation. Buckthorn, for example, which I detest, is spreading far and wide precisely because so many birds are able to utilize the fruits for food. So that argument alone doesn't wash.

But rest assured, I hate the presence of (Most of) the invasive species in our landscape.

+oM

My job partly involves fighting invasives, too, and I too sometimes cringe at some of the less-reasonable claims made regarding exotics and invasives, so get where you're coming from.

But I'm also trained (as you probably are) to look at these things from a "system" perspective. While there may be some bird (or other) species that can benefit from a thicket of buckthorn or a NM-dominated forest, there are others that require habitat characteristics that those systems can't provide. A system that is more diverse with regard to structure and composition of the plant community can generally provide for a greater diversity of animals. If these exotics "played nice" with the natives (as plenty of naturalized exotics do), then their addition would not be such a detriment, and they wouldn't earn the "invasive" label. I realize that this is nothing new to you, but for the sake of the discussion it should be said.

Complete agreement ^^^. The one that gets me is when I hear about Norway spruce as an "invasive". Ugh! Of course, NS is one of my favorite species, period, but still, what's it hurting? Would a native white spruce have occupied that spot otherwise? Possible, but sketchy to the point of meaninglessness.

There is also language in many a treatise on prairie management wherein perfectly fine native species are labelled invasive. That is, to my point of view, a failure to grasp the system level of plant communities to include the fourth dimension-time. As if prairies, at least in my state, would have ever been anything but a temporary result of major disturbance, before woody species make their return. Nowhere in my area would there EVER have been fires every two ro three years, to maintain that plant community. Sorry for yelling, lol. I have to install prairies as "native vegetation" around our many stormwater detention ponds. It's a cool plant community, and serves a number of purposes in this application. I just hate how it has been anointed as "The" native plant community. This area was nearly all wooded or wetland.

There, I' ve probably managed to throw everyone off this thread that was interested in the OT! Sorry.

+oM

I lightly excavated around the trunks of the 3 trees in my court to find the root flares. One was clearly defined; there were few or no secondary roots, and the flare was probably about 3 inches above the ground level. The soil and mulch piled on top of the flare was about another 3 inches. The other 2 trees were less clearly defined. I believe I ran into a flare at about the same point but there were a lot more secondary roots, and there were also roots that were a good 3/4" to 1" thick which seemed horizontal to the ground. The line between primary and secondary is foggy for me. My guess is all the flares are 2-3" above ground, which I presume is OK since there will be some settling. I also imagine I (or the builder's landscaper) should remove the soil and mulch down to the flare, or since we're coming upon winter and only 3 weeks after planting, should we be more protective? Any suggestions welcome.

I lightly excavated around the trunks of the 3 trees in my court to find the root flares. One was clearly defined; there were few or no secondary roots, and the flare was probably about 3 inches above the ground level. The soil and mulch piled on top of the flare was about another 3 inches. The other 2 trees were less clearly defined. I believe I ran into a flare at about the same point but there were a lot more secondary roots, and there were also roots that were a good 3/4" to 1" thick which seemed horizontal to the ground. The line between primary and secondary is foggy for me. My guess is all the flares are 2-3" above ground, which I presume is OK since there will be some settling. I also imagine I (or the builder's landscaper) should remove the soil and mulch down to the flare, or since we're coming upon winter and only 3 weeks after planting, should we be more protective? Any suggestions welcome.