This may sounds silly, but does that kind of trees grow pears? How long do their flowering blossom last? Does it have fragnance? I'm originally from FL and we have never seen one of those before.
They produce a small, ugly fruit that not even the birds eat. There is nothing prettier in the spring than a whole row of bradford pears in bloom, and nothing sadder looking than that same row of bradford pears after a hard freeze.
Are we going to be able to escape the hard freeze? Hope so! Here is what WRAL has posted: Severe Weather Watches and Warnings NC County Reference Map Bladen Freeze Warning From 12:00 a.m., Mar 18 until 8:00 a.m., Mar 18 Brunswick Freeze Warning From 12:00 a.m., Mar 18 until 8:00 a.m., Mar 18 Columbus Freeze Warning From 12:00 a.m., Mar 18 until 8:00 a.m., Mar 18 Halifax, VA Flood Warning From 1:49 a.m., Mar 17 until 6:52 a.m., Mar 19 Flood Warning From 10:39 a.m., Mar 17 until 5:41 a.m., Mar 19 New Hanover Freeze Warning From 12:00 a.m., Mar 18 until 8:00 a.m., Mar 18 Pender Freeze Warning From 12:00 a.m., Mar 18 until 8:00 a.m., Mar 18 Robeson Freeze Warning From 12:00 a.m., Mar 18 until 8:00 a.m., Mar 18http://wral.com/weather/page/1010362/
Funny you mentioned about the smell, one day I was delivering mails to one of my customer's house, she got a row of Bradford Pear trees and the smell at her place smelled like pet's urine. How embarrassing to think it was her pets! Turned out to be her trees' smell! Ewww!
I think they smell like . . . how do I put this nicely . . . not urine but another bodily fluid . . . that only men can produce . . . ewwww
My boys call them 'fish trees' because they think the trees smell like a fish market or the cleaning station where they fish with Grandpa...I didn't believe them until I took a big whiff...ugh! I may have to chop the nasty things down!! (Pretty don't carry a whole lot of weight, when you've gotta deal with that stench!)
They are sure pretty to look at...in yards other than my own. We say they smell like an elephant house.
This is when seasonal allergies come in handy! I can oooh and ahhh at the sight but can't smell squat for the clogged sinuses LOL
I've seen a series of landscape fads over the last several years, and all of them have turned out - shall we say - not so well. Who remembers red-tip photinias? Pretty, fast growing, easy to care for, but all genetically identical, so when a blight came along there was no escape. Bradford pears - fast growing, impressive in bloom, but a short bloom time and a short lived tree. 15-20 years after planting, most have started splitting and dying. Leyland Cypress - another attractive, fast growing tree, but shallow rooted, readily falling over in a storm. Consider native trees - redbud and dogwood, for example. They're much slower growing, but longer lived trees. I think there's a definite correlation between growth rate and the life of the tree.
