lucky you! I've been on the phone for over an hour trying to track this stuff down here in LI/Queens! I'm starting to think Container gardening is not for me... I found wholesaler but they won't tell me who they currently sell to... GAH! Gardening shouldn't be this hard, right? My other choice now is to buy Repti-bark which would be very $$. How much did you get your bag for and how large is this bag?

To answer your question about fruit, while it is supposed to be sterile, it frequently cross pollinates with other ornamental pears (like 'Bradford') and creates small, inedible but viable fruit. I do not recommend it for all the reasons already mentioned. For a white flowering spring tree, consider Hawthorn or Serviceberry.

Sorry I haven't been back... It looks like one tree may have been planted. I talked to most of the HOA Board Members (of which I am also a Board member) and they, unfortunately, have the attitude of "so what?" They also say: * we already have lots of pear trees in the neighborhood so what's a few more? * whatever we do won't matter so why bother worrying about it * if the nurseries still sell them they must not be that bad * we already have so many other invasive plants [canada thistle, multaflora rose, & tree of heaven] what's one more? Both Howard County and the MD Dept of Natural Resources have asked that we not plant them but the response I got on that one is "if they aren't stopping the nurseries from selling them then it must not be that important or that much of a problem" VERY frustrating...I tried explaining about being "environmentally responsible" and how if everyone has that attitude then they're right, nothing will help; but if we start by taking a stand and doing something about it then we can make a difference... *sigh* I tried. It looks like we have a long way to go here in Maryland and, in particular, Western Howard County! Thanks for all your support!

desertsage: I haven't visited any wild clevelands since June, but my own clevelands never have a second bloom. Summer watering prolongs the blooming season a bit, but they don't bloom for a second time. S. clevelandii, like others of the Audibertia group, lives a cycle. Flowering is the climax of the wet/cool-season part of their annual cycle. As the flowers mature, the plants start to grow their smaller dry-season leaves. I'd think it would be difficult for them, physiologically, to reverse field and bloom a second time. Even a summer thunderstorm (we had one in July) would be insufficient to alter the cycle. As an additional point of interest, I have a cleveland that I bought from a commercial nursery and that appears to have a lot of S. leucophylla in it. It's entire bloom, which occurs in late May, takes about 10 days. If you don't pay attention, you can miss it. The clevelands that I grew from seed and cuttings flower later but much longer.