I did pick some and brought them home.Put them out were I put out birdseed to see if anything tries it.

Are these fruits useless for wildlife? Its not like I have planted any but they are all around so it would be nice if they were good for something. I do like the way they look in the spring when they bloom.

Next time I go for my walk I will pick some more to bring home. Might as well put them to some use. Sidewalks under some of the trees are littered with squished fallen fruit from people stepping on it. Otherwise the stuff is hard as nails.

Have a look at this article on Bradfords and their ilk.

I am really not a Bradford Pear hater as the trees look lovely blooming in the spring. Its just that it seems that the town gets carried away with itself and plants the same tree everywhere. I see that elsewhere also but preferr the Bradfords to the large leaf red maple I have seen planted on every street corner in other towns as street trees.

Not that this would be sufficient reason to plant MORE of them - there are many better trees available which pose no environmental threat.

Sally

On the upside they are beautiful when they bloom and their leaves are lovely, especially in the fall. The birds don't eat the fruit of my trees, they split it open and eat the seeds. That is the way they do the Washington Hawthorne fruit also. The whole yard smells wonderful when they are in bloom.

However, ours has been wonderful to us. It is mature and provides a great amount of shade in the summer months and is a haven for birds. I know it isn't long lived...but I'm enjoying it while I can.

I agree that they are overplanted but they are hardly a scourge. lol

I agree with some of the statments made about them and Im sure the city could have planted something better but I enjoy the tree. Pretty flowers in spring, dark shiny foliage in summer, and nice red leaves in autumn. Not much fruit drops to the ground on these trees, but lots of pollen in the spring. The only other tree most cities here plant as street trees are Norway Maples. I hate them with a passion.

Tim

Apparently there are some with larger fruits than the marble sized rock hard things I am used to seeing. Maybe not as good for the Songbirds but Golf Ball sized fruit great for feeding Squirrells, Rabbitts and local wildlife. The Squirrells around here are very well fed so I don't concern myself with food for squirrells.

http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?articleId=842&issueId= 64

Native plants, as a general rule, have far greater nutritional value to North American wildlife as for lack of a simpler explanation... they have evolved together over thousands of years. For all practical purposes, we starve out our native fauna by allowing exotic invasive species to out compete native flora.

http://www.windstar.org/features/nativeplants.htm

Starlings, a non native species of bird which out compete native species, roost in dense vegetation such as that afforded by... Callery Pears. Incidentally, starlings do eat the fruit of the Callery Pears although many native species can't or won't.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/mecklenburg/depts/hort/wild/

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ /Sturnus_vulgaris.html

Not all non native plant species upset balance. There are many well behaved plants that do not invade or possess the propensity for same. Unfortunately, current scientific data out there is pointing to Calleryana Pears as being highly invasive as much so if not even more so than Chinese Tallow, Buckthorn, Kudzu, and Tree of Heavens.

It never ceases to disappoint me how some nurseries market Callery Pears. Please note there is no mention of the Aristocrat being a Callery Pear that may hybridize with other Callery Pears at the web site listed below. This is how it is that an unsuspecting public comes to purchase many types of plants which spread rampantly across the countryside displacing native vegetation that our wildlife so desperately needs to survive. This particular retailer happened to pop up first in my search but they are by no means the only nursery marketing Callery Pear cultivars.

http://www.lazyssfarm.com/Inquiring Minds/bradford_pears.htm

Here's a post from the Trees Forum that may help those wishing to steer clear of purchasing Callery Pears. This list does not appear to contain newer cultivars released after 1996 which are definitely out there being aggressively marketed-

Posted by: Ron_B USDA 8 WA (My Page) on Wed, Mar 17, 04 at 14:53

"These are Callery pears, of which 'Bradford' is but one selection. You appear to be using "Bradford" in place of "Callery" here. Callery pears introduced prior to 1996 include
Aristocrat(TM) PP 3193 (1972)
'Autumn Blaze' PP 4591 (1980)
'Bradford'
Burgundy Snow(TM)
'Capital'
Chanticleer(R) PP 2489 (1965)
(syn. 'Cleveland Select')
Cleveland Pride(R)
'Earlyred'
Frontier(TM)
Gladiator(TM)
f. graciliflora
Metropolitan(TM)
'Orchard Park'
Princess(TM)
Pzazz(TM)
'Rancho'
'Redspire' PP 3815 (1975)
'Stone Hill'
Trinity(R) PP 4530 (1980)
Valiant(R) PP 8050 (1992)
'Whitehouse'

So, as you can see the nursery industry (and others) have been busy naming, introducing and producing Callery pears for quite awhile, enabling business parks, malls, shopping centers and apartment complexes throughout much of the country to be graced with the odor of pear blossoms every spring."

When I was growing up in southern New Jersey, the streets along my walk to middle school had a bunch of older Bradford Pears line them. These were larger than any I've seen since, yet within 2 years time, nearly all of them had fallen apart - I must have gotten there right at the very end of their life spans.

Down here in Maryland, they are even more common, sadly. The center of the local town was lined with them until June, 2002, when we had very serious thunderstorms - it was this group of storms that dropped the Wye Oak on the Eastern Shore, and that white oak will be missed. Most other trees survived except the stupid Bradford Pears in the center of town were all destroyed. The next year they cut them all down and ripped them, replacing them with some other type of tree that is not a pear.

Unfortunately, these trees are still pretty common down here and have basically taken over the nursey industry, at least "big box" stores like Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. When you walk in and look for a tree, 2/3 of them or more will be Callery Pears of some type, and the rest are something useful (if you're lucky). Getting a decent oak or maple is like pulling teeth, but everyone wants pears, right? Ugh!

They are pretty in flower and fall color, but folks, thats it. It has a stupid gumdrop shape that grows into such a thick canopy you can barely shine a flashlight through it, it splits in half in the slightest ice storm, smells like dead fish in flower, and shades out any understory plants...and to top it off, the cultivars created to solve the branching problem, like Chanticleer and Aristocrat, are the ones responsible for getting Bradfords to cross pollinate and start spreading in the countryside as an invasive exotic!

I happen to be a landscape architect and we are blamed for the overuse of this tree, but I can tell you, were all on the bandwagon now. The only ones at fault in spreading the use of this tree now are homeowners and big wholesale nurseries...keep chastising your neighbors if they choose Bradfords, and perhaps demand will subside. Lets hope so.

I cant tell you how much I hate this tree. A nice replacement medium shade tree would be American Hornbeam and Bosque or Allee Chinese Elm, but if you need the flower, Serviceberry, Fringetree, Cherry, Dogwood, Redbud, Magnolias...albeit these are small, they tend to grow in a wide range.