Plant of the Month

‘Bradford’ Flowering Pear
Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’
Location: Grid V5 north end of the east slope, above the wood chip trail

The Flowering Pears surprised me this year and actually produced nice fall colors. Many of the other trees that usually produce nice color did not this year; because of the record cold temperatures we had in mid-October. Many leaves froze on the trees and just turned brown. Some then fell off, and some others are still hanging on.

Flowering Pears usually are one of the last trees to display fall colors and fairly often in our climate they will freeze before they turn color. However, apparently they were tough enough (or high enough up the valley) to survive the cold in October and they actually colored quite nicely.
Thirty years ago, Flowering Pears were being introduced and promoted as the next great thing. Nurseries bragged about their uniform shape, vigorous growth, white flowers, little or no fruit, glossy green leaves and striking fall colors. Unfortunately, a couple of less desirable traits began showing up as the trees became more widely planted. The upright growth, combined with somewhat brittle wood made them susceptible to breakage. That was a big problem in the mid west where early season ice storms would hit while the leaves were still on the trees. In Moscow, we have some trouble with breakage after wind events; but, it has not been too serious. The other undesirable trait is that the profuse white flowers in the spring have an odor that some people find objectionable. In spite of these traits, Flowering Pears can be very nice trees in our climate.


November Projects
One of the annual projects we do in the Arboretum is an evaluation of a collection of trees that have been donated by the J.F. Schmidt & Son Nursery in Oregon. We are one of several sites all over the country participating in their ‘Trial Pack’ program. Every spring they send us two each of between five and ten deciduous trees that they are evaluating for whether or not to include them in their product mix. The program began in 1990, and we have planted trees every year since. Over the 29 years of the program we have planted 336 trees and of those, 286 are still living. Every fall they ask us to do an evaluation of how the trees have done for us. One of the criteria they are particularly interested in is fall color, since that can vary a great deal depending on climate. Unfortunately, this year many of the trees received a “little or none” in the fall color category for us due to the October cold snap.

One of the first trees we received from the program, Autumn Blaze® Maple (Acer freemannii ‘Jeffersred’) has now become the most popular shade tree in the United States.

This fall I have had the luxury of a non-student crew member, so I have had full time assistance in the fall for the first time ever. We have been able to accomplish more than usual, installing another phase of irrigation, pruning, preparing for next spring planting, and hopefully keeping up with leaf cleanup and winter preparations. Almost all of our leaves are disposed of by chopping them up with the mulching blades on our large mowers. The leaves are shredded into small pieces that then sift down through the grass and decompose.


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