Ornamental Pear a Good Choice But Needs Special Soil Preparation at Planting

Q. We recently planted a fruitless Bradford Pear tree in the place of a tree that was dead. It is in good soil which I mixed with planting dirt from Star Nursery, where we purchased the tree. It was in a 15 gallon pot and is about 10 feet tall in the ground, so I would think it is possibly two to three years old. I realise this is not the best time of year to put a tree in the  ground, but hope that it's maturity will give it a good start. We had a number of these trees in our yard from new when we lived in Texas and they did very well in the heat there. So I wonder if you have any advice or tips for us now we have one here in Nevada. We did do the 'call before you dig'. Any advice etc will be really appreciated

A. Ornamental pear varieties like Bradford, Chanticleer and others perform reasonably well in our desert keeping in mind they are not desert plants. I have watched them growing for many years along Maryland Parkway in front of the Boulevard Mall and across the street from it.

            They have beautiful blooms in the spring and a nice round, dense canopy provided they are planted and maintained properly. They probably should not go into the hottest part of the landscape with a lot of reflected heat.

            With this in mind they will never perform well for any length of time in a rock mulch landscape. They may do okay growing in rock mulch for a few years but after about five years the leaves will begin to yellow and scorch, the canopy will thin, and branches will die back.

            When this happens, it will be open to borer attacks, the same kind that attack other fruit trees. These trees should be planted in an organic mulch such as wood chips which decompose and add valuable organic material back to the soil.

        Ornamental pears should be planted with lots of organic material in the planting hole, they need to be staked solidly for the first growing season. After the first growing season they should be firmly established in the soil.

            Fertilize them once a year just like you would any other fruit tree. Use a well balanced fertilizer with the three numbers the same such as 8-8-8, 10-10-10, etc or fertilizers sprayed on the foliage 3 to 4 times after the leaves emerge before it gets hot. They will benefit from periodic applications of iron because they will get yellowing from iron chlorosis.

            I like to divide our landscapes into three water use zones; high water use, moderate water use and low water use. These water use zones represent the total amount and frequency of water applied.

            These trees could easily go into the high or moderate water use zones but never the low water use zone. The watering frequency would be the same as other large trees and shrubs as you would apply water under the canopy so that at least half the area under the canopy is wetted to a depth of 18 inches.