Why You Should Rethink Bradford Pear Trees In Your Yard

If there's a pretty white tree in front of your house in spring, chances are it's Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana). The white blooms are a welcome sign of spring, until their smell hits your nose. That offensive scent isn’t the only thing bothersome about Bradford pear trees. Their limbs are weak, and they’re invasive. They're not a good choice for your landscape. Thankfully, there are alternatives that are pretty and fragrant. Here’s why you should rethink Bradford pear trees and what you can do about them.

Why Are People Getting Rid Of Bradford Pear Trees?

There’s a lot wrong with Bradford pears. Sure, they have beautiful white blooms in early spring before their leaves emerge. But that’s about all they have going for them. Here’s what makes them a problem.

Weak Branching Structure

So when a nice 30-foot-tall tree encounters a wind gust of 40 mph, it breaks up into little pieces and ends up as a pile of debris in the street. The reason is that all of its major limbs diverge from a single point on the trunk and the trunk can't take the stress. Bradford carnage may not happen this year or next year, but it will happen. Hope it doesn't fall on your house, car, hot tub, chicken coop, grill, or classical sculpture.

Short Life-Span

Because of their structural weakness, many Bradford pears only live 10 to 20 years. A storm is bound to come through sometime and cause damage. Bradford pears often split and can lose half of their trunk during one windy night or just from age. It may be hard for the tree to recover. As the trees age, they are also more susceptible to pests and disease. Typical pests include aphids, borers, and scales. Fire blight can cause blackened limbs and spread to crops like apples and pears.

Dense Shade

The dense branching produces heavy shade, which lawn grass hates. The worst place to plant a Bradford pear in your yard is on a slope because after the grass dies, the soil washes away, and you're left with ugly gullies that seem to collect all of your empties. They also choke out any other plants that try to grow beneath them.

An Invasive Pest

Selected years ago by the U. S. National Arboretum as a thornless, highly ornamental version of the Chinese Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana), Bradford was supposed to be seedless and sterile. That's because its flowers can't pollinate themselves. All was hunky-dory, until the arboretum and others started releasing selections that didn't bust up in storms or get as huge as Bradford does (up to 50 feet tall and 40 feet wide). Then all of these Callery pears started carousing and cross-pollinating, forming fruit and viable seed.

Bradford pears are considered invasive throughout the Southeast. They outcompete native plants that provide food for wildlife, which harms the ecosystem. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina have banned selling or planting Bradford pear trees because they are invasive, and other states are considering doing the same. Minnesota has begun to phase out sales of the trees, and they will be designated as restricted in 2026. North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia, Indiana, and Kentucky have implemented programs that offer free trees to homeowners who cut them down. So has Missouri and Kansas. The Virginia Department of Forestry has a Callery Pear Exchange Program where residents who remove the invasive trees from personal property receive free native trees to replace them.

Today, if you take a close look at the surroundings of areas planted with Bradfords, you will see thorny Callery pear seedlings coming up. The picture above was taken in north Georgia, where Bradford pears have seeded in so thickly, it's like a briar patch.

An Offensive Smell

This is no problem for my cat, but most people don't care for the smell of tuna on a trunk. If you smell something rotten emanating from your tree while it's in flower, you are most certainly growing a Bradford pear. With a name like pear, these trees smell far from the sweet-smelling fruit. The smell does have a purpose: It attracts pollinators. In this case, the pollinators are flies that are attracted to the stinky scent and will eat pests like aphids and scales.

Messy Fruit

Bradford pear trees produce sterile fruits that aren’t edible for humans and can be messy as they drop into the yard. The small, hard fruits contain two to four seeds. Once they dry and soften, birds eat them. If Bradford pears cross-pollinate with other flowering pears, then viable seeds can form. Birds that eat the fruit spread those seeds outside of cities and into undisturbed areas, where they choke out native plants.

What To Do With a Bradford Pear Tree

It gets worse. Some folks in my neighborhood have taken to murdering their Bradfords the same way they murder their crepe myrtles. They get chainsaws and loppers and cut back the branches to stumps in spring, forcing the tree to put out all new growth each year. This is a foolish move because while a murdered crepe will still bloom this year, a Bradford pear won't. There is only one good solution for handling this short-lived tree: Cut it down before it causes damage to your property or spreads into the wild.

What To Plant Next

There are other white-flowering trees that can beautify your garden each spring. And there are many more small trees to choose from for accenting your front yard with pretty blossoms or colorful fall foliage. Look for native trees like flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), white fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus), or Carolina silverbell (Halesia Carolina).