Enough of the storms..

@#!#@$ @#$@#$# Bradford pear trees!

The storm that blew through about 15 minutes ago finished off 2 of what the ice storm left. This time one of them took half of a just maturing tulip poplar with it.

A pox on the demented person that brought these stupid, worthless ornamental trees to the US.





If you are thinking about planting these things... don't. Unless you plan on hiring someone to prune the heck out of them every 2 or 3 years after they mature, they break down if you look at them wrong.

2009 has been absolute hell on all of my trees.

Louisville got 7" of rain in 90 minutes this morning. It flooded most of the city from the pics that I have seen.

wow man, Sorry to hear it.

Makes the fog and rain here, look like sunshine.
Been a cool wet summer.
Better days are coming....

These storms are getting more and more violent.....this is from last Wednesday night...

Sorry to hear about your trees. My neighbor used to have two really nice Bradford's in his front yard and storms snapped them off. That storm last night hit hard here with lots of high wind, rain, and lightening. We were w/o power from 8:35pm-10pm. I didn't lose any shingles this time.

y'all know you can get money out of those trees through your homeowners insurance right - like $500 or so per tree

think of the bright side, now you get to go work cuttin up limbs when it clears up :mrgreen:

only jokin. that must of been some wind yall got to split it down the middle, or are they just weak tree's to begin with

Loggerhead Mike said:

think of the bright side, now you get to go work cuttin up limbs when it clears up :mrgreen:

only jokin. that must of been some wind yall got to split it down the middle, or are they just weak tree's to begin with

Click to expand...

with winds like that, any trees out in the open would have a hard time holding up

russ010 said:

y'all know you can get money out of those trees through your homeowners insurance right - like $500 or so per tree

Click to expand...

Homeowners around here only covers lightning strikes, not wind damage.. for whatever reason.

Loggerhead, Bradford Pears are the debil. The have short main trunks with huge canopies. Since they are so top heavy with extremely tall limbs, they are very suceptable to wind and ice damage. The formation of the limbs where they attach to the trunk makes them easy to split, on top of that.

I would never plant one of my own accord but these two and another in my front yard were already here when I bought the house. They are beatiful trees but if you can get 10 years out of one (about when they mature) without it being destroyed, you are really lucky and it's only a matter of time until it happens.

about the only way to make them last is to put them in a row with a leyland cypress in between each one of them... or plant them really close to each other

they are all over her in GA and SC, and the only ones that really make it are the ones planted like that

You can also make them last if you prune the heck out of them about every 3 or 4 years to shorten and thin the canopy.

Doing that usually requires a professional with a lift once they get tall enough that they are in danger of splitting. About the time they get back to looking like a classic Bradford, it's time to cut them back again.

I can't see the use in having a tree that has to look like garbage all of the time when it matures or risk losing it.