A ROSE BY ANOTHER NAME? THE CALLERY PEAR TREE
Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
December 11, 2005, Issue 189
No eco-urban web site would be complete without mentioning the ubiquitous Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana). The ornamental Callery pear trees are 24/7 gorgeous; but they may also be an eco-disaster in progress, progressing at the slow rate that eco-disasters progress until, suddenly, it is too late to do anything but wish we'd already done something.
Best case is that, after adorning your lawn for only a couple of decades, a collapsing 30-foot Callery will pull down your utility lines or smash your porch. Worse case is that a horde of wild Callery children will wipe out whatever native plants the Norway maples, porcelain berry, Asiatic bittersweet, white-tailed deer, and Japanese knotweed have left in the sunny spots at the edge of the forest, and along the roads and fence lines. Well, at least they'll look good.
PICTURE: Callery pear cultivar in all its fall glory, corner of Strawberry Hill and Hoyt Street Alley, Stamford CT, November 2005. Note the lovely, furry bud ready for next year.
The short, sorry history of the Callery pear in America is a tale illustrating once again that the more those know-it-all homo sapien brats mess with Mother Nature, the worse it gets. It also tells us why we, the Great American Gardeners, have to take matters into our own hands.
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