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Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

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Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#131

Post by devmor »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #125
devmor wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent 3 years combating bamboo in a similar fashion and it certainly didn't work for me. I've never experienced a more frustratingly invasive plant in my life. Even wild blackberries are easier to deal with.

Around here, the best way to deal with a bamboo infestation is with a backhoe. Bamboo is big grass. It spreads via seeds and roots. It all needs to be ripped out. When I lived in Africa, we'd have bamboo forests, with trunks up to about a two-foot diameter (and about six inches apart). Completely impassable. Great place for small critters to escape big predators.

Unfortunately for me, my neighbor had about a half acre of thick bamboo forest, and thus my yard was set upon by the plant endlessly.

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#132

Post by cmpalmer52 »

echelon wrote: post #35
beezle wrote: post #8

Was on HOA board where we had a road with quite a few of these trees. They were a fortune to prune because of the numerous small branches at higher reaches. As a board, we actually hoped they would come down in storms so we could replace with something more appropriate without the take down cost (and resident complaints). Another unqiue thing is during the summer it was not uncommon for a branch to suddenly explode -…

Bradford pears were all the rage in the 1990s to 2000s. At one point HOAs thought these were the best tree . Local gardens and nurseries would sell lots of them to landscapers and homeowners. 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 w…

It doesn’t even take wind or storms, if they get too big/spread out, they’ll sometimes just spontaneously split down the middle (one in our backyard pulled this trick and one in our front yard, but we were planning on cutting them down anyway - planted by builders and/or previous residents).

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#133

Post by saghm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #113
davemp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the polite common name is “Pin Oak” [1] a fast growing, short lived, and relatively red oak. Supposedly the smell comes from a bacterial infection that afflicts most of the Pin Oak population. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_palustris

I've never been very fond of nature to begin with[0], but I never imagined becoming disgusted by trees . That's until seeing some four different tree species mentioned in this thread, whose common characteristic seems to be the aura of shite and decay that takes years or decades to break through people's desperate need to pretend that since it is nature and handles well, it must be good. -- [0] - Specifically at huma…

> I've never been very fond of nature to begin with

> [0] - Specifically at human/humane, live in and breathe in and admire it scale. I'm very fond of nature at population scale, and at molecular scale, both of which present interesting puzzles and applications.

I can relate to this a lot. I feel the same way about nature as I do about a tiger or a volcano; I think they're cool and I respect them, but I don't care to spend time up close with them.

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#134

Post by BeFlatXIII »

dvirsky wrote: post #29
flutas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also smell like someone took a rotting fish, dunked it in sewage and decided to roast it in the sun for a few days. They're everywhere where I live, and it's so bad.

These are the same trees known as Cum Trees, right? My neighbors have a couple, I didn't know these before moving to the US, and the first time I smelled them was... something.

Piperidine Trees, if you spent too much time in an undergrad chem lab.

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#135

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

devmor wrote: post #131
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around here, the best way to deal with a bamboo infestation is with a backhoe. Bamboo is big grass. It spreads via seeds and roots. It all needs to be ripped out. When I lived in Africa, we'd have bamboo forests, with trunks up to about a two-foot diameter (and about six inches apart). Completely impassable. Great place for small critters to escape big predators.

Unfortunately for me, my neighbor had about a half acre of thick bamboo forest, and thus my yard was set upon by the plant endlessly.

In my area, you can rat these folks out to the DEC. I suspect they can make life difficult for folks that want to keep their weedlots.

I watched them take out a backyard full of kudzu.

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#136

Post by skeledrew »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #114
skeledrew wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And look at the state of the world with all our interventions. We may be "a part of nature", but the things we do to it are definitely not natural. We're the only ones doing collectively irreparable harm, so as not to be at its mercy.

> We may be "a part of nature", but the things we do to it are definitely not natural. Name three. I can think of one: we landed stuff on the Moon and beyond. I think that otherwise, nature has a hard time reaching out beyond low Earth orbit. Other than that, I can't think of anything we'd consider massive fuckups that nature didn't do better. We're definitely tamer than anything else, considering that life itself is…

All things nuclear, gross water mismanagement, fossil fuel mining and usage, all things plastic, hunting and killing for sport and other non-nutrient-related desires, extreme resource hoarding, ... that's 6 broad areas so far; shall I continue?

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#137

Post by Loughla »

davemp wrote: post #100
Loughla wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean Piss Elm? I've never heard of an oak with that quality.

I believe the polite common name is “Pin Oak” [1] a fast growing, short lived, and relatively red oak. Supposedly the smell comes from a bacterial infection that afflicts most of the Pin Oak population. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_palustris

That's wild. I have cut hundreds of pin oaks and have never encountered that. I learned something!

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#138

Post by TeMPOraL »

skeledrew wrote: post #136
TeMPOraL wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We may be "a part of nature", but the things we do to it are definitely not natural. Name three. I can think of one: we landed stuff on the Moon and beyond. I think that otherwise, nature has a hard time reaching out beyond low Earth orbit. Other than that, I can't think of anything we'd consider massive fuckups that nature didn't do better. We're definitely tamer than anything else, considering that life itself is…

All things nuclear, gross water mismanagement, fossil fuel mining and usage, all things plastic, hunting and killing for sport and other non-nutrient-related desires, extreme resource hoarding, ... that's 6 broad areas so far; shall I continue?

> All things nuclear

The stupid part is that we're not using nuclear energy, and have irrational fear of nuclear waste relative to much more dangerous, potent, and undiscussed "conventional" industrial waste.

Also naturally ocurring nuclear reactors are a thing. On the surface, too, I'm not talking about the Earth's core here.

> gross water mismanagement

Animals do intentional and unintentional water management too.

> fossil fuel mining and usage, all things plastic

Fair enough, this is unique-ish and we are mishandling it, though the use of either isn't bad per se - rather the unsustainable use.

> hunting and killing for sport and other non-nutrient-related desires

Have you ever seen a cat?

> extreme resource hoarding

That's a fundamental thing all life does.

Keep in mind that nothing in nature is thinking forwards - all life is self-destructively greedy, and nature doesn't care if e.g. some beavers dam a river and accidentally flood a whole valley, killing themselves, their offspring, and extincting a bunch of unique flora and fauna. The stability you see, that people so love and associate with nature - it's not a fixed thing, it's a temporary equilibrium in life killing other life.

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#139

Post by t-3 »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #103
pvaldes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few observations: Japanese Cherries can be much more packed with flowers than this pear (It depends on the cultivar). Both Cherries and Dogwoods are royalty on gardens, but both deploy to much wider structures that can be low branched and tend to hang searching the floor, so this Pyrus is still pretty much unbeatable for narrow streets. Palms have their own problems, like thorns, but are "designed" for streets with…

Unfortunately Bradford pears are toxic to humans (though not birds).

Everything I've found while googling about this says that they are not toxic, they just don't taste very good and are very hard.

Re: Bradford pear trees banned in few states – More are looking to eradicate them

#140

Post by t-3 »

pvaldes wrote: post #57
ethbr1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this takes the cake for "first invasive species I've seen populate over my lifespan." 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…

A few observations: Japanese Cherries can be much more packed with flowers than this pear (It depends on the cultivar). Both Cherries and Dogwoods are royalty on gardens, but both deploy to much wider structures that can be low branched and tend to hang searching the floor, so this Pyrus is still pretty much unbeatable for narrow streets. Palms have their own problems, like thorns, but are "designed" for streets with…

There are some small ornamental apples that have been in my yard for decades that look very similar dogwood. No idea about the cultivar or anything (previous owner planted them AFAIK), but they are beautiful with reddish-pink leaves and white blossoms.
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