March 29, 2017 – Freeze report on the Bradford Pears

          Bradford pears often get frost here in North Carolina and usually it is no big deal.  The blooms get that tinge of light brown and then you don’t get that incredible few days when the unfrosted blooms drift down like snow.   The “snowing” of my Bradford pear blooms is something I look forward to each year and I usually sit on my park bench [which is conveniently placed between two of the Bradford pears] to enjoy the moment.  I was cheated out of it this year.

          And, sometimes we have had frosts that burn the tips of the fresh green leaves, but they manage to pull through.

History

          Our Bradford Pears flank the driveway in an allée.  I planted them one wet-ground Sunday in 1998 after our lot was graded for the driveway and house location.  Armed with a shovel, ball of string, measuring tape, two metal stakes and 5 beautiful specimens of Bradford Pears with 1 ½ to 2 inch diameter trunks in 5 gallon pots, I set to work.

          I plunked the pots down in a straight line about 8 feet above the grade of the sloping garden along the drive starting at the street and ending past the house location which is about 6 car lengths long.  I carefully measured equal space between them. I then walked up and down the street to assess the view of them as you approached our soon to be built house.  Then I circled the property and verified I had the small trees in the right place compared to the rest of the proposed landscaping in my mind.

          I put in two stakes and ran the straight line so that when I planted the trees they would create a perfectly straight allée [at maturity] down the driveway.

          I then proceeded to dig the holes, one by one and was interrupted by a very nosey, friendly neighbor who came by to gave me his two-cents’ worth of unsolicited advice.   After I admired his home’s signage “Halcyon” which I mentioned was a lovely [happy, golden, idyllic, peaceful, or joyful] name for his home I commented that one of the best Hosta varieties is also called Halcyon of which I have a few and I prize them. 

I thought we had gotten the conversation off to a nice start, yet it quickly tanked when he told me I was planting the trees too close together.  He didn’t get my concept that I knew the trees’ limbs would eventually touch and intermingle which was my intent for my allée.  And, then he made the fatal comment that I should not plant them in a straight line either.

Well, this Baroness of her land, Queen of her castle, and Supreme architect of her landscape and gardens unpoetically told him to take a hike back to his Halcyon loft in pretty certain terms.

My allée of Bradford pears were the first in the neighborhood and GOSH, the rest of the neighbors have copied me as new homes were built and more and more Bradford pears have been planted.   In fact, at the end of the development there is a double allée of Bradford pears that is breathtaking in the spring.

Back to the present

So, my precious Bradford Pear allée blossoms got frozen while the blooms were being pollinated.

Yesterday after my morning walk I sat on my park bench under the Bradford pears and what I found both curious and concerning was the ground beneath the canopy of trees is covered with little stems.  Most of the blossom stems that froze have fallen off.  The tree has purged itself by dropping those frozen blossoms and is retaining very few that will set fruit.

What concerns me greatly is my birds seem to love the little fruits the Bradford pears develop.   Next fall and winter my birds are going to be hungry without their Bradford pear fruit and will possibly move on to a better food supply.  I hope not.

I can only hope that some of the blossoms successfully pollinated and manage to develop into fruit.