For a long time now I have denigrated my Bradford pear tree. It’s smelly in the spring, although it looks nice. It produces loads of inedible fruit that spawns offspring in my garden and everywhere else the birds decide to fly. Bradford pear trees are generally weak trees that split because of their “V” shaped branch unions that cluster with more branches than a hydra has heads. There are many, many, many reasons why you shouldn’t plant these invasive ornamental Callery pear trees but they get planted anyway in gardens and landscapes by builders and homeowners looking for a cheap, fast growing tree that has an attractive and uniform appearance. Remember looks aren’t everything when planting a tree.
Obviously the Bradford pear tree is a good candidate for my least favorite plant in my garden. I haven’t brought myself to slaughter it yet, however that has never been far from my mind. The size of our trees provides a privacy screen in the front yard that just can’t be replaced quickly. So I hesitate. The offspring of our trees sprout all over which won’t stop should they be removed since the builder of our neighborhood planted two in EVERY front yard. Good for cross pollination? You bet. Good for the sanity of gardener who has to weed them? Not so much.
Last night we had wind like you wouldn’t believe. It sounded like O’Hare airport was in our backyard most of the day. I think I saw a lady on a bicycle fly by and there may have been a cow that mooed at me while flying past the window as well. But amazingly the plants I would most like an excuse for removing are still standing. They split in every other yard all the time, why not mine? Which brings me to one of the many cosmic rules of gardening:
“Plants that you don’t like (or don’t want) are indestructible.”
You’ve noticed that rule too haven’t you? It’s always that one plant that you never get around to remove, feel bad for removing, or actually have a good reason for keeping but secretly despise that never, ever gets hit by pests, disease or acts of god. It’s indestructible!
I’ve told you about my most despised and least favorite plant in the garden, now tell us about yours!
I inherited a large Camelia in my back yard. Messiest. Flowers. Ever.
They certainly can produce a lot of flowering petals. Although it's a good one to have for off-season color!
The Calery Pear is indeed an invasive. Thanks for reminding us again. I hate Norther Sea Oats,
No need to thank me for reminding folks not to plant the pear! It's a pleasure!
Great question!!!
the 70 ft tall spruce tree planted by our neighbors ( long before I lived here) dead on the property line between our homes and 10 feet from the front corner of my house. making a good share of my property part of their landscape. Bad neighbors!!! It is horribly limbed up 12 feet and is very hard to grow anything underneath.
Wow, that must intrude quite far into your property! I'm not sure what zone you live in but you could try heucheras which are fairly tolerant of dry shade and do well under many trees. That particular tree sounds like it could be planted way to close to your house!
I live in River Forest Il, zone 5 . yes. it is very close to the house. I have a group of limelight hydrangeas planted under it to hide the trunk. they do well if I irrigate them very frequently. I also started training a trumpet vine up an obelisk near the trunk to use the tree as a support, but realized that my 100 year old plumbing tiles are directly underneath, so I have been trying to remove that before it establishes itself and have replaced with the chartreuse leaved lace vine. to train up the tree.
I would say my bridalwreath spirea. It's beautiful for about five days a year and is a boring blob the rest of the time. However, I've eliminated one clump already, and the other won't make it through spring, heh heh.
It doesn't really have interesting foliage like 'Magic Carpet' or other spireas. At least it doesn't smell bad though!