In Which I Contemplate the Murdering of Trees

My Bradford Pear trees are annoying.

They smell bad in spring when the blossoms come.

Their branches are too tight.

They scare me on windy days.

There’s mold growing on the ground from the WINTER shade because of those dense branches.

I’ve got too many “bad” trees — Bradford pear, purple leaf plum, black cherry — I’ve got surface roots and girdling roots and not enough space to plant good trees, like my baby gingkoes and Kentucky coffeetrees.

But to take these Bradford pears down would make me a tree murderer. Again.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

If I call the tree guy today, I can probably have them down before the smell starts. Where’s that cheap tree guy’s number?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 9:48 am and is filed under bradford pear, julie's trees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

14 Responses to “In Which I Contemplate the Murdering of Trees”

1. Tom Barns says:

   April 1, 2010 at 2:15 pm

   My wife had 9 (yes, that’s nine) pear trees planted along one side of our backyard about 8 years ago when we moved in. They were all about 12 feet tall when planted. Since they quickly began blocking our view, I decided to control them by major pruning every year. I have been cutting all new growth out for the past 6 years. They have a very nice shape and aren’t getting real dense. They look terrible when I cut them but as soon as they start growing, they look fine. I am getting about 3-4 feet of growth per year on every limb so I do a lot of cutting. The trees are no taller than 15-20 and I will not let them get any bigger. I am hoping that thinning them every year also helps to control breakage. Actually I am hoping that I cause some disease and they all die but don’t tell her I said that.

   Reply
   • Julie Walton Shaver says:

     April 1, 2010 at 2:54 pm

     LOL. Good luck, Tom. That must be quite a project with visual, um, appeal? Thanks for writing!

     Reply
2. Diane Burda says:

   November 22, 2009 at 4:18 pm

   I have the same dilemma. To chop down my Bradford Pear or not to chop. That is the question. I too was misled by a landscape store as to the “qualities” of this tree. First of all he planted it too close to my house and now branches are overpowering and towering that corner of the houes. My gutters are being clogged in the fall. The smell is so horrible in the Spring that I cannot open any windows until the white blooms are gone and believe me after the long Ohio winters I am anxious to throw open my windows in the Spring. The tree was beautifully shaped until last Spring when it lost a major branch smack down the middle and now it looks sort of like the hand sign Spock on Star Trek makes when greeting people. I think it has to go despite my aversion to cutting down trees. To prove just how I avoid cutting down trees I offer this fact: I have had a half of a maple tree( due to girdling root) in my front yard for many years and despite having total strangers and numerous neighbors offering to cut it down for me, I have thus far refused. Every Spring there is less and less of it alive, yet it does provide some shade. If I could aford to have a 20 foot tree planted to replace it I might give in to putting it( and my neighbors) out of it’s misery. I actually talk to that tree like it is a frail ailing relative. I appreciate this blog. It makes me feel better to know that there are others out there like me.

   Reply
3. Leon McDonald says:

   May 4, 2008 at 8:41 am

   We planted two bradford pear trees in 2003. One is now 12 to 14 ft tall and the trunk is 10 inches around. The other tree is 8 to 10 feet tall, very sparse and the base is 6 inches around. This tree looks very sickly. What do we do to get it to grow and look as good as the other bradford pear?

   Reply
4. Jeff Beckman says:

   April 8, 2007 at 12:10 pm

   My mother used to love seeing all of the white trees in Metuchen in April. Look!, white, white!

   How about planting a European Hornbeam. I need something for comparison.

   Reply
5. Judy Reynolds says:

   March 31, 2007 at 7:55 am

   Hi, I have just come across your blog – I have a question which is not related to your Bradford pears, but has been puzzling me. Where I walk the dogs, there are a lot of clumps of trees that are becoming one tree. It the trunks are less than 4 inches diameter, they are separate trees with roots all close together, but after they are about 8 inches, the trunks start growing together. What happens to the bark and growing cells that are on the inside of this? What do the growth rings look like after thay have grown together for 10 or 20 years? How strong are the joins? Are they subject to damage from the water freezing and thawing?
   Thanks, and I really enjoy what I have read so far
   Judy

   Reply
6. Martha Stoodley says:

   March 29, 2007 at 3:55 pm

   Hi -
   As a garden columnist and garden blogger for our local newspaper, I can only urge you to move to an easy to use blog software setup. Blogging is fun but should be easy on the writers.

   Your tree blog is great and I published the subscription information in my blog with a recommendation to both of my readers.

   Migrate over here but please leave the old blog entries available for our selfish pleasure.
   Martha in Muskogee OK

   Reply
7. Jules says:

   March 28, 2007 at 10:51 pm

   Thanks for the support, Pat! I think you were my very first Tree Grower’s Diary subscriber!
   

   Reply
8. Pat Lambdin says:

   March 28, 2007 at 3:52 pm

   I’ve really enjoyed your Tree Grower’s Diary and can certainly understand the frustration of dealing with the website rather than living and enjoying your family and trees. So, I agree with you in combining your two websites into one and I will happily sign up. Thanks so much for your great photos and entertaining info.

   Reply
9. Carter says:

   March 28, 2007 at 12:35 pm

   hi Julie, no problems with the ash tree whatsoever, but the emerald ash borer has been found in the neighboring suburbs, at this point I’m going to wait, it’s just very frustrating!

   Reply
10. Jules says:

    March 28, 2007 at 8:36 am

    Ugh, Bob, you’re KILLING me!

    Felipe, you have a really cool name. That would be the perfect name for a tree diarist!

    Carter, I wanna see a picture of that ash tree. What’s wrong with it?

    Reply
11. bob says:

    March 27, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    they’re my favorites

    Reply
12. Carter says:

    March 27, 2007 at 2:47 pm

    oooh, tough decision. I’m having a similar soul-searching regarding my going on 3 years-in-the-ground white ash; everyone is telling me it’s doomed, so part of me says I should remove it and start over now instead of waiting.

    but I just can’t bear to do it!

    Reply
13. Felipe Pereira says:

    March 27, 2007 at 1:51 pm

    Don’t kill the pear tree, it’s my namesake! Pereira is the portuguese word for “pear tree” so I have to defend my trees!

    Reply