“They are a scourge,” and they’re taking over. Once loved, this tree is a big problem.

To have lived in the ‘80s and ‘90s was to see the heyday of the ornamental pear tree.

The beauteous trees erupted each spring in a cloud of white puff. The trees grew in the poor soil upon which many quickly constructed housing developments were built. They were cheap and easily available at big-box stores

Pear trees were also notoriously weak-wooded, splintering in wind. In 2008, Lexington recommended that homeowners plant other, stronger street trees more in accordance with Kentucky’s climate.

But the pear trees, although out of favor, would not pack up. Their seeds were easily carried by birds, and the trees, now considered invasive, are all over central Kentucky. Now they’re considered up there with invasive botanical pests such as honeysuckle and kudzu.

“They are absolutely everywhere, and people don’t see this problem,” said Tom Kimmerer, who consults on historic trees for his group, Venerable Trees. “They are a scourge. They are as bad as honeysuckle.”

Kimmerer called flowering pears “a nasty tree, short-lived and not very shade-tolerant.”

“The blooms smell like vomit,” he said. “Thorns are strong enough to puncture the tires of a car. In my opinion it has no redeeming features.”

Known by its popular cultivar names — Bradford pear, Chanticleer pear, Aristocrat pear, Cleveland Select pear. They are all cultivars of Callery pear, a small ornamental flowering tree brought to the U.S. from China in the late 1800s.

And, Kimmerer said, none of them are good trees for the long term.

See that stretch along Bryan Station Road, a Reforest the Bluegrass site? A row of invasive pear trees are all along the road. That’s also the case along Richmond Road in the basin next to the Richmond Road Wal-Mart, where the rows of pear trees creep nearly onto the road. At a Reforest the Bluegrass site at the entrance to Shillito Park, pear trees have again reared their flowering heads.

John Saylor, a program manager for urban forestry and natural resource management with Lexington city government, said there was no shame in loving pear trees back before their less desirable qualities became known.

In reforesting the Bluegrass, Saylor said the city tries to use a variety of trees so that if one variety of tree suffers, the others around it will take up the slack.

“It’s not as doom and gloom as it appears,” Saylor said. “By adding trees, we’ve increased the bioversity immensely.”

Now Saylor spends time trying to get rid of the pear trees so that more native-friendly trees can grow.

But don’t misunderstand Kimmerer. He sees a bright side to the legendary frailty of the pear trees. They don’t last long.

“They’re pretty short-lived trees, and eventually those trees will overtop the Callery pears and the Callery pears will die out,” he said.

For homeowners looking for a better choice, Kimmerer suggested trees such as Eastern red bud, which he called “a glorious little native tree,” and native plum trees such as American plum. Silky dogwood, smokey dogwood and small magnolias are also good choices, he said.

The pear tree legacy embarrasses many of its early enthusiasts.

“It was the tree of the ‘80s and ‘90s and this many years down the road it’s like ‘What have we done?” Saylor said.

This story was originally published April 2, 2018 at 10:48 AM with the headline "“They are a scourge,” and they’re taking over. Once loved, this tree is a big problem.."