Another unqiue thing is during the summer it was not uncommon for a branch to suddenly explode - apparently some type of moisture/vapor build up in the interior.
To this day, they're all over my home state of Georgia. And they're still selected for new landscaping.
They did have a few pros:
- Look great in the spring
- Huge, lush, thick canopy in the summer
- Fast growing
But there are way too many problems:
- Kills all the grass underneath them from shade and root structure
- Seedlings and root offshoots are pervasive pests
- Produces a lot of fruit, and it's toxic to humans and dogs. It smells bad and can smear if you step on it
- Trees only live 7 - 15 years, and they leave a gnarly root system to deal with.
- Extremely prone to falling over during winds or tornadoes. Can easily damage fences, housing, etc. We had to replace our fence once because of one. Even small storms can bring down the older trees.
- And of course, everyone knows how awful they smell in the spring
Just moved back to GA after 3 years away and asked folks what all the white-blossoming trees in meadows are this spring, as don't remember seeing so many blossoms previously.
Cherries (closest blossom I know) aren't that fruitful / clustering. Dogwoods look completely different.
> Extremely prone to falling over during winds or tornadoes.
Also kids climbing on them, from childhood experience. Weak wood.
And spot on with the no grass underneath...and the homeowner complaints about dirt in front of their units ("if you pay to take it down and replace, we'll let you!")
They still do. It’s the cheapest bang for the buck tree for large scale developers across the entire US.
They're everywhere where I live, and it's so bad.
My neighbors have a couple, I didn't know these before moving to the US, and the first time I smelled them was... something.
Some people say they smell like bleach and/or semen as well. I'd rather have Durian than Bradford pear.
These days you can really only buy the male ones but older plantings are awful. https://www.purdue.edu/fnr/extension/ginkgo-stinkgo-are-boys...
During the fall months, these parking spaces were always available.
I found out why.
If you park under one of these things in November, you come out in the evening, and it looks like every incontinent buzzard on Earth sat over your car.
EDIT:
Having finally eradicated all of the ones from our land, the best method is to immediately pour herbicide onto the trunk after cutting it down. The herbicide will get sucked down into the roots this way. If you don't do this, you'll get new suckers all over the place for a few years.
I was talking about the pears, which are small, round things, and rot on the branch; finally plopping off. They make this nasty, sticky brown mess, filled with seeds. Looks exactly like [large] bird shit, but is actually a lot more difficult to clean.
"Sitting Over" + "Incontinent" == "Shat On"
This alters the ecosystem.
"Life ... finds a way".
... with bird poop.
The latter probably not in Jeff Goldblum's voice though.
Just the ticket for fly-by-night real estate developers.
By the time they get big enough to cause problems, the developer is long gone, off to fleece other suckers.
Inedible fruit is a desirable trait in urbanism. Not necessarily a bad thing.
The fungus does not spread from white pine to white pine, only from currants to currant, or currant to white pine, so eliminating the nearby currants protects the white pine industry.
I’m happy with white pines and raspberries/blueberries, Europe can keep their blackcurrants.
[0] https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/chippewa/recarea/?recid=2667...
Somewhat worse: Krauter Vesuvius / Cherry Plum trees stain sidewalks and make a horrible mess every year.
Bradford's also smell really bad.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/23agnj/til_t...
The original Bradford pear tree was ideal for planting because it was thought to be sterile in that it could not reproduce. -- TFA
John Hammond: There you are. There. They imprint on the first creature they come in contact with. Helps them to trust me. I've been present for the birth of every creature on this island.
Ian Malcolm: Well, surely not the ones that have bred in the wild.
Henry Wu: Actually, they can't breed in the wild. Population control is one of our security precautions. There is no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park.
Ian Malcolm: Uh, and how do you know they can't breed?
Henry Wu: Well that's because all the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We've engineered them that way.I'll save you from the auto playing view port locker video.
* At first the species being planted everywhere was considered sterile, but somehow cross-pollination with related varieties can make them produce viable fruit, then animals spread the seeds.
* The fruit is not edible to humans.
* Some varieties have nasty thorns on them, able to pop vehicle tires, and over time grow together into thickets.
This is a feature, not a bug
I'm in California. Our city doesn't allow Bradford pear trees anymore. When we bought our hour we had three Bradford pear trees. Over time we lost two of them during rainy seasons. One got uprooted and the other broke off a major branch. Both times it was fortunate that nobody was injured or property got damaged. Ended up replacing them all.
We're flawed creatures so it's not ideal, but it sure beats being at the mercy of the forces nature uses to correct things on its own, like diseases and famine.
Nothing about this tree growing in North America is "nature taking its course".
Humans decided to cultivate it here, and we can choose to stop. Cycles of correction, sure, but attempting to fix problems due to introduced species seems like a worthwhile effort.
But also, left alone, nature tends to rebalance on its own. Any species with a dominant advantage will eventually lose that advantage, given a few generations. Well, except for humans, who continually fight the natural rebalancing, and are only succeeding in increasingly destroying that which sustains life on this planet.
Lawns and backyards.