The pear tree blooms again

We are keeping our fingers crossed. After really cutting our beloved pear tree back last year because of fire blight, we weren't sure she would survive. This week she has shown her usual beauty, and we are keeping our fingers crossed, offering a bit of extra compost and deep watering her roots in the hope that she'll share with us a few more seasons of shade and tasty pears.

She has been a gift all her life, and we will do our best to treat her gently for as long as she's with us.

Poor old pear tree

You might remember that about a year ago, I was singing the pear tree blues. Well, one year later, I'm still singing them.

Last year we had the tree treated for fire blight, and this summer, we're not sure how it's doing. But there were a lot of dead twigs and branches, and Lee learned that July is a good time to prune a pear tree, so we did our best to remove the dead parts of the tree.

Usually, from what I've read, it's not good to cut more than one-third of a tree in any one pruning, so we've always erred on the side of caution -- perhaps to the tree's detriment. In taking out the dead stuff this summer (three weekends worth of work) I'm sure we took more than one-third. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

To be fair, the tree was quite overgrown, even before we came to it. The previous owners were elderly and had let the yard go, and we didn't know the first thing about fruit trees. But arborists say that you should be able to throw a hat through a well pruned fruit tree so that it doesn't get caught in the branches. Our tree had so many criss-crossing limbs that it would have been hard to throw a ball through it. So we pruned it hard this year, to get rid of the fire blight remnants and give it some breathing space. There wasn't much fruit on it this year.

I did some research and learned that most pear trees don't live more than 50 years... and we're guessing that, since our home was built around 65 years ago, the tree is close to its end. It breaks my heart to think that we may have to take it down. 

Not only is the fruit delicious, it provides a lovely shaded place just outside our kitchen window, a place where many friends have joined me for under-the-pear-tree visits on warm spring, summer, or autumn afternoons. Stunning spring blossoms have filled our yard with fragrance, and I've loved listening to the bees appreciate the tree too.

So I have been babying the tree as best I can, giving it lots of water in these last hot-weather weeks, and I've wrapped my arms around it more than once and thanked it for its beauty and shade. I hope it will survive, but if it has reached the end of its life cycle, it has certainly blessed us with undeserved bounty. 

And for that, I am forever grateful.

Pear tree blues

This spring, I noticed that our pear trees were not their usual happy selves. Not long after they were full of blossoms, many of the new leaves that followed the flowers turned brown, and clumps of them curled toward the ground. Alarm bells really began to ring in my head when, after the first windy day in June, our yard looked like autumn had arrived. The heat of early July only made the trees look sadder yet.

So I called an arborist who came to see what was going on. He confirmed my worst fears -- that both of our pear trees were suffering from Fire Blight, and that he had noticed other trees in the area with the same malady, including our neighbours' apple trees next door. Fire Blight is caused by a bacteria that is easily spread by birds flying from tree to tree.

The arborist suggested that we allow him to inject the tree with a bactericide that will act systemically and hopefully get rid of the blight, a better option than full tree removal, at least until we know the trees can't be cured. It's been successful in other places, and it was our only hope to save the trees.

Unfortunately, the injection happened sooner than expected. We were away, and unable to water our trees as recommended to improve the uptake of the "medicine." I gave them a good watering once I got home, but was it too little too late? I'm still feeling a bit worried about our trees and their wonderful fruit, and because of the bactericide, we can't eat or share pears this year or next, until the trees are pruned sometime in the winter of 2022-2023.

If you've ever sat with me in the shade of the pear tree outside my kitchen window on a sunny spring, summer, or autumn day, or tasted the delicious little pears, you'll understand my pear tree blues. It's a gorgeous little tree that provides a lot of beauty to our yard, and jams and loaves that we enjoy all year round. All we can do now is live in hope that both trees will recover, and we'll continue to enjoy their shade and taste that sweet fruit again in two years or so. 

So this post is a momentary lament, and an apology to those who enjoy our pears each fall. I'll keep you posted on our trees' progress, and hopefully, the news will be good!