Last year I discovered a wild Pear tree on my property, it has fruit growing on it though not many. The tree was not in the best shape, but was surprised to even have them here in the wild. When I see a Pear tree I am used to it being a Bradford or also known as a Callery Pear Tree, these do not produce fruit and smell awful. Though I would think in the wild the fruiting pear trees are more common, as the ornamental variety are mostly used in suburban areas.
Hoping these end up being the fruiting variety I mark them with a ribbon and will come back this summer to see if they produced fruit.
Above was the first Pear tree I found, its quite the ugly tree, but I cleaned it up a little and hope it does better. A vine was growing all over it so I removed that and trimmed off dead branches.
Since its flowering I have hope it will produce fruit again.
These flowers are how I spotted other Pear trees near by. The distinctive white flowers bloom while most others are still dormant.
So I went off searching for white flowering trees around me, and verified if they are Pear trees upon closer inspection.
We can see the blue ribbons I loosely tied around the tree, sorry about my finger...lol
Looks like the same flowers as the confirmed fruiting Pear tree.
Once it drops its flowers, it looks like any other tree on the border of the forest. So these blue blazes will help a lot to spot its fruit.
The leaves are coming up and soon will fill this tree again for the spring and summer.
As I walk away I notice how many other competing trees are growing around it. If it indeed ends up being a fruiting Pear tree I will clear other trees around it so it has more space to grow and hopefully produce even more fruit.
But for now I want to know if its an ornamental or a fruiting variety.
A third possible Pear tree has been spotted on my property, this one a little smaller.
Just in case I marked it with a blue ribbon so when it drops its flowers I can easily find it again.
This tree is younger than the others and still has its thorns.
Lots of flowers, so I have hope it will produce fruit.
Marking this one as well with a ribbon I will check on this and the others in the summer. Hopefully upon my return I will spot some Pears growing. If these end up being Bradfords/Callery I will probably pull them up and get a free tree in return.
Virginia the state I live in has a program to help get rid of the evasive non fruiting variety. So even if these are not what I want, I can still benefit by getting rid of it. And at the very least they will make for some firewood next winter.
But we shall see, it will be many months before they fruit, but just knowing where they are will greatly help me check them again among the expansive boarder of the forest here. From the ones I have seen they only grow on the edge of the woods, probably need lots of light for fruit. But maybe there are some scrubby ones deep in the forest I have yet to discover as well.