Aristocrat Pear Tree

After a long cold winter there is nothing like a tree flowering in early spring to lift the heart and bring a promise of better things to come. When there is a tree that needs very little care, flowers in April, is always healthy and also throws a good area of shade, that is a real find. The Aristocrat Pear Tree is the perfect combination of flowering tree and shade tree, so if you only have room for one large tree, you don’t have to choose flowers or shade, you can have both. It grows throughout America and blooms profusely every spring. It can be used as a beautiful specimen tree or planted in a row to make a privacy screen.

Growing Aristocrat Pear Trees

The Aristocrat Pear Tree is a fast-growing tree, increasing in height by 4 feet a year when young, so it soon reaches 35 or even 40 feet in 10-15 years. It is drought tolerant once it has become established in your garden and it easily adapts to most kinds of soil, so even though it prefers a loamy soil it will also grow happily on clay soils too. It is a great choice for suburban and inner-city yards as it has a high tolerance of urban pollution and it is unaffected by insects. This tree is also resistant to the most important disease of Pear trees, fire-blight. The original trees were actually brought to America in a search for trees resistant to this disease, which has killed millions of pear trees.

Size and Appearance

The Aristocrat Pear Tree is an upright tree, growing 35 to 45 feet tall and 20 to 30 feet wide. It has a rounded shape and makes an attractive specimen tree, especially when in flower. The straight trunk has smooth bark of a reddish or light-brown color with horizontal beige streaks, so it is interesting in winter too. The flowers are white and appear in dense clusters in April on the bare branches, or just as the first tiny leaves appear. It is a beautiful sight in spring.

The leaves are oval, three inches long with a smooth and glossy surface. Many trees drop their leaves at the first frost, but the Aristocrat Pear holds them well into the fall. It also does not need very low temperatures to color well and the vibrant reds and purples are very reliable, even in southern gardens. Although it has upright branches, they are not sharply angled like the old Bradford Pear, so this tree has good resistance to breakage from heavy snow and winter storms.

Hardiness

The Aristocrat Pear Tree is hardy from zones 5 to 9 so, unless you live in the coldest northern states, you will be able to grow this tree in your region. It adapts well to almost all kinds of soil and is particularly helpful if you garden on clay soil as many other trees do not grow well on clay. Once the roots have spread a little it is drought resistant so this is a tree that will grow and thrive in almost all kinds of environmental conditions.

Using as a Privacy Screen

When planting a row to create a privacy screen allow 10 to 12 feet between your trees. Keep your tree that distance from buildings too and do not plant underneath power lines. Dig a hole or a trench two or three times wider than the pot, but no deeper. Place your plants in the centre of the planting hole, replace most of the soil and firm it down around the root ball. Then water thoroughly and when the water has drained away put back the rest of the soil.

Planting Location and Maintenance

The Aristocrat Pear Tree will do best in a sunny position, but remember that shady spots may be sunny higher up, so if your tree can grow into the sun it will be happy. Pruning is rarely needed but any that is necessary should be done in hot, dry times in summer, to avoid disease.

History and Origins of the Aristocrat Pear Tree

The Aristocrat Pear Tree is a specially selected form of the Callery Pear (Pyrus calleryana) which grows wild in several areas of China. The prodigious plant collector Frank Meyer, who was an official ‘Agricultural Plant Explorer’ for the US Department of Agriculture, brought these trees to America in the early 20^th century. Plans to use it for breeding resistant fruiting Pear trees failed, so now it is grown for its hardiness and beauty, not for its fruit, which is small, hard and rarely even produced on cultivated trees. This tree is an improved replacement for the Bradford Pear, which was an earlier introduction that proved too prone to break in storms.

Buying Aristocrat Pear Trees at The Tree Center

The Aristocrat Pear Tree is a selected form of the Callery Pear and only this exact variety will be the right proportions and have its rapid growth rate. So it must be produced directly from trees known to be exactly the right variety. Our trees are grown the correct way, from grafts of these special trees onto hardy roots. That way every tree is identical to the original so you get the right features and they produce a very uniform effect when planted in a row. However these take longer to produce, so avoid cheaper seedling trees as these will only be a disappointment to you.

Our trees are true to the original form of the variety and we stock a wide range of sizes to give you the best plant for your purpose. Our supply is constantly being renewed to give our customers the freshest and healthiest trees, so quantities may be limited. Order your Aristocrat Pear Tree now to avoid disappointment.