Justin Davies’ fascination with native trees ignited on a trail run after he came across a tree that he didn’t recognize. “I had this almost sense of sadness that I didn’t know what this tree was. I didn’t know its name,” he explains.
Davies realized that, despite all his time spent exploring the outdoors, he could still find deeper ways to connect with his natural surroundings. “That moment stuck with me and led me down this path of researching trees and discovering their interesting uses.”
Davies began woodworking and creating content online about native trees and ways to explore and experience nature. Feeling drawn to wood from different native trees, he incorporated his carpentry into videos, but one of his most-viewed woodworking videos doesn’t feature a tree native to Utah at all. “I had a really beautiful piece of wood in my shop and I made a platter out of it, and people had a lot of opinions in the comments,” says Davies. Nearly 2,000 comments on the YouTube video and no one had a nice thing to say about the tree. That tree is the Bradford Pear.
There are many reasons someone might hate the Bradford Pear Tree, a common cultivar of the Callery Pear, originally native to China. One reason is its ubiquitousness. “You see this tree quite literally everywhere,” says Daryl Lindsey, Founder and Principal Designer of YardFarmer, a Utah-based sustainable landscape design company. “There are entire neighborhoods where they’re the primary street tree. I feel like they are in more Utah yards than they aren’t.”
Even as I write this, a new commercial real estate development across the street is lined with young Bradford Pears. The trees will grow quickly, with their height topping out around 50 feet. In early spring, they explode with white blossoms and produce small, round fruit. They have vibrant green leaves that, come fall, turn to lovely shades of orange and yellow. They’re also resistant to diseases and relatively drought-tolerant. These features have made it the immensely popular landscaping tree that it is today.
The Smell Isn’t Even The Worst Part
“I get why on paper it would be a sensible tree to pick as a pretty ornamental landscaping tree,” says Lindsey. “I still don’t really understand why landscapers didn’t acknowledge the smell before planting them en masse.”
The objectionable flower odor and overuse aren’t its only issues. “It’s also weak-wooded because it’s so fast growing, so it doesn’t hold heavy snow load or hold up in windstorms very well,” says Lindsey. “I think, honestly, between that and the smell, those are the two things that I dislike the most about it.”
Actually, Lindsey has another reason to dislike the Bradford Pear. “It is technically an invasive tree,” she says. It is less invasive in Utah than it is in other parts of the country because of Utah’s arid climate. However, in a yard where water often pools, the Bradford Pear could take over entire ecosystems, as it has in the Midwest. Even if it is less aggressive here, “If you’re overplanting a tree, you’re mimicking the features of an invasive species.
If there are entire city blocks where the only street tree is a Bradford Pear, it has overtaken a couple of acres of land and that is crowding out native biodiversity,” says Lindsey.
One of the reasons cities prefer the Bradford Pear to other flowering trees is because of its minimal debris, but Davies suggests we broaden our thinking. A tree’s value is not determined by its possibility of debris alone. “We’ve banned trees— even native trees have been banned by city ordinances—in favor of trees like Bradford Pears,” says Davies. “There’s just an over-reliance on them, when I would love to see a bit more diversity.”
For Lindsey, who focuses on including native plants in her landscape designs, city ordinances limiting tree diversity can be both a gift and a curse when trying to find native alternatives. “It’s very easy for me to pick out street trees for a client because I pull up their city’s ordinances and look at their allowed trees and there’s usually only one to two native options on the list.”
Fabulous for ease of job, she says, “but not so fabulous for landscape sustainability.”
Something Better
When it comes to planting a native alternative to the Bradford Pear, she acknowledges, “I hate to say this, there is no perfect replacement at that exact size that has spring interest and fall interest and minimal debris.” So, it really comes down to figuring out a client’s top priorities. In the same size range, a go-to for Lindsey is the native Big Tooth Maple. It’s cold and drought-tolerant, produces beautiful fall foliage, and can even be tapped for maple syrup.
The Boxelder Maple is a native alternative to the Bradford Pear, and produces equally enticing fall colors.
Lindsey also recommends a new addition to the market—a cultivar of the Boxelder Maple. “I know the Boxelder is very controversial for a lot of reasons,” says Lindsey, but the Sensation Boxelder Maple, as this cultivar is called, “does not attract boxelder bugs, is more drought tolerant than even the Big Tooth Maple, and it has absolutely bananas fall color—bright orange fall interest.”
If a client wants a tree that erupts in spring blossoms, and they don’t mind a little debris, “The Catalpas are absolutely insane,” says Lindsey. “And, we’ve got native Crabapples and native Serviceberries that are truly stunning in the spring.”
As a possible answer to the countless trees already planted, you can also propagate and graft an edible pear tree onto the existing root stock. “Just turn it into a non-invasive, better-smelling fruit tree,” says Lindsey. “I kind of love the idea of—if you have a bunch of Callery Pears on a fence line and you’d rather have fruit—let’s cut the trees and graft edible pears onto them.”
In the end, “There shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all tree for every single landscape because every yard has different soil conditions, different heat and light exposure,” she says. “I do think you have to make more nuanced decisions than people [developers] who are mass-planting the Bradford Pear are willing to make.”
Spending a little extra time for nuance and selecting the perfect native tree will not only save water and resources, but also “supports millions of native pollinators and insects over that tree’s lifetime.” With the overuse of a single tree, one that isn’t native to Utah at that, both Lindsey and Davies believe we are creating an environment bereft of something important. More so than hating the tree, “I just hate the laziness that goes into making ubiquitous planting decisions for entire communities rather than thinking about our plants and our neighborhoods and our homes and our yards as nature,” Lindsey explains. “We are still nature, you and me, human beings are nature. There’s wildlife that needs to move through even the most urban of areas… and we could do better.” Better than the Bradford Pear.
As far as the tree that Davies couldn’t identify on that mountain trail? A Curl-Leaf Mountain Mahogany. “When I learned the name of this tree, I felt better. That does, to me, foster a stronger connection and deeper appreciation with the natural world.” Walking through many Utah cities, there’s only one tree’s name to learn: Pyrus calleryana cultivar “Bradford,” a.k.a. the Bradford Pear, a.k.a. the tree everyone loves to hate. But Davies says even that can be a place to start your journey into the natural world.
“If your burning hatred for Bradford Pears was something that made you think about trees a little bit differently and brought you down a path of wanting to get to know other species… that’s an awesome entry point. That’s a silver lining in the story of this tree that we all have a lot of strong opinions on.”
Finding the Perfect Tree
For help selecting the right tree for your project, sustainable landscape designer Daryl Lindsey suggests TreeUtah.org as a place to start. Which, in addition to curating lists of native Utah trees, also hosts regular events with arborists for more hands-on learning. The online Plant Finder and events put on by the Conservation Garden Park in West Jordan are also excellent resources.
Of course, Lindsey also offers landscaping consultations and design services. Learn more at YardFarmer.co.
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