Thanks for the suggestions. This is the only pear tree at this location. It is supposed to be self fruitful, but I understand cross pollination is always helpful. I have 2 other pears about 3/4 mile SW (didn't bloom this year) and there are a couple others about 1/2 mile east (bloomed nicely this year), and another 2 miles east. Pears are scarce here because "pears won't grow in Wyoming". I'm really stretching the distances for getting cross pollination, though. The flowers were covered with native bees and bumblebees during bloom when they first opened and we had a few days of summer before the rain. I've been thinking of trying another variety of pear and maybe should move that up to next year. I guess it just puzzled me that 2 years ago the tree had just a few flower clusters and probably half the flowers set fruit and carried to maturity, so I figured it was old enough to start producing. Ace: I planted it as a bare root tree. Never dug in to see what it had for roots since then, though. It really hasn't grown that much, probably about 6-7 feet now on the tallest branch. Some of the spurs that come out have grown over 12-18 inches in a year, but generally growth is limited to around 6-8 inches on the main branches. I've done very limited pruning, just to remove branches that were growing in directions where they would interfere, and I spread the limbs using notched sticks. Normal organic matter for my soil is less than 1% and I haven't really done anything here to change that. The soil is sandy on top of river gravel/sand starting about 18 inches down and marked by a layer of lime.

I always have to go look up these grass varieties. Marathon, for those of you who don't know, is TTTF. And for those of you who don't know what means, turf-type tall fescue is a grass that does spread by itself but the progress is measured in terms of ice ages. Basically if you want more grass, you need more seed/sod. I have seen it everywhere in SoCal. It does seem to do surprisingly well even in the very dry climates of the desert. I guess they water the heck out of it. I have also seen it choke, cough, and sputter in even partial shade. It could be that it just won't work in your shade. I am experimenting with a type of zoysia called Shadow Turf in my yard. It is a fairly aggressive form of zoysia. It filled in very quickly after an initial 2-month period where it spent its energy sending out rhizomes instead of green tops. Then suddenly I had it everywhere. My application has much (MUCH) more sun than I anticipated (we removed a tree), so the grass is doing extremely well. I have also seen it in an application ranging from full sun to no sun under an English walnut tree. It looked incredible everywhere except in the no-sun area. There, after two years of trying to get established, it is still trying. At least the grass is winning, just at a much slower pace. The one-inch plug is now 1 square foot of dense grass after 2 seasons. But elsewhere it is very plush, dense, and a very nice color of green. This grass is surprising me. They said it was shade tolerant, but this is more than tolerant. Where in SoCal do you live? I don't need the nearest two intersections but the name of the city/town would help pin you down. For example if you lived in Blythe the suggestions might be different than if you lived in Big Bear or Newport.

Buzzing about Spring? Nah. Never mind that my trees are a full month ahead of schedule. People are buzzing about an overnight low that broke the previous record high. People are buzzing about Memorial Day water temps on St. Patrick's Day. Thanks to AGW it appears we're playing with loaded dice. Interesting times indeed. Spring bloomers are pretty an all, but I'd just prefer it if the climate that has sustained homo sapiens for all this time didn't change in my lifetime.

@Tracey Fry, this looks just like my tree! The droplets of water I believe are collected to make perfumes, likely they press the whole flower bud and those droplets too. I believe they are coming from the interior flower. Once the flower blooms and doesn't set fruit pull it all apart you will see what I'm saying. I have done this to the ones that are not female & male, but simply male flower parts and there are little water droplets or sticky secretions inside the flower, towards the bottom where fruit should have been. OK this is a second post or the first post about this on my Etrog tree (citron) that I have been having issues with. I forgot to update this thread as well. I now am seeing flowers that are fully functional on my citron. I am watching fruit begin on it now. So far I have 4 flowers that are setting fruit. I will grab pics & upload them from my other computer's hard drive in a few.