Beautiful But Weak Bradford Pears
For despite all the beauty they lend to thousands of landscapes throughout the region, some trees are plagued with flaws due to their combination of vigorous growth, weak wood and poor branch structure, they often begin falling apart after a short time. Some trees are beautiful but are undesirable in other ways on your property.? They may drop messy fruit that make it hard to walk on your lawn or attract bees, be short lived or be weedy. To keep them from causing a mess of your yard or damaging your home or causing problems with power lines they may require extra upkeep, or removal.
The Bradford Pear – once the darling of? highway medians – is now being removed from city streets because of their brittle nature that took 20 years to discover. Broken branches plummeting into traffic during storms became an increasing hazard. While many homeowner associations and local municipalities have quit planting the trees after learning of their weaknesses, Bradford pear trees are still popular because of their beautiful blooms in the Spring. If you insist on buying Bradford pear trees, you can minimize the risk of your trees eventually collapsing by picking trees with a strong single leader and eliminating branches that intersect with the trunk at sharp angles and having them regularly inspected and pruned.
A few other trees that you may want to avoid in your yard because they are prone to breakage, are weedy/messy, or are magnets for damaging insects and webworms: Boxelder, Silver Maple, Tree of Heaven, Mimosa, Hickories, Catalpa, Green Ash, Sweetgum, Chinaberry, Royal Paulownia, Sycamore, White Poplar, E. Cottonwood.
Contact Wood Acres Tree Specialists if you have a problem tree in Maryland or Washington DC. Our arborists can assess the species and correct, treat, or remove it for you so you can replace it with a less dangerous or “cleaner” and healthier species of tree that can have a chance at long, beautiful life.
