There is the saying that the Lord will provide. My son just bought a house and 4 acres with trees. He wants to take down two Bradford pear trees. Now to find a place to store it. Hmm.
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Good source of Bradford pear
- Thread starter John Torchick
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I’m glad he is taking them out. They are on the invasive tree list.
Yes, it is an invasive species. It dose cut like butter!
robo hippy
robo hippy
There is a subdivision near us that has them along the main road at the edge of the subdivision. High winds have crews trimming or cutting up the trees. I must have passed on tons of wood! Arrrgggh. Blossoms stink, too.
I personally like how it looks and turns, but it is definitely split-happy. Smaller branches can make decent ornaments.
I’m not a fan of the look. Mostly very plain grain and oxidizes very quickly to look even more plain. That oxidized color is hard to sand off to get an even color when it was turned green.
Bradford Pair makes for excellent basket illusion pieces, takes a bead wonderfully and the color goes great with the process. I wish i had more !
Since it will be fresh cut, the next thing is to dry it. As for grain and color, not all wood has to be spalted or bold grain.
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It takes dye well and when finished looks a great deal like cherry. Most cuts have a nice curl due to all the strain on the limbs. I have not had any problem with cracking , must be the atmosphere.
I live in the foothills of NC and Bradford Pears are becoming very invasive. In the spring the hills and roadsides are covered with their distinctive white and stinky blooms like in the pic in the Clemson University article linked here, Invasive Bradford pear banned for sale in SC.
They revert with each generation gradually back to a bush with thick 4 in thorns that chokes out everything else.
Attached is a pic of a Bradford in the large field near my home. Those thorns are no joke
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They revert with each generation gradually back to a bush with thick 4 in thorns that chokes out everything else.
Attached is a pic of a Bradford in the large field near my home. Those thorns are no joke
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I know here in Colorado, Russian Olive is considered invasive (funny that it also has long super sharp spikes on it) it is on the do not plant list as well. its actually considered a weed tree here. Ash is also on the do not plant list because of ash beetles killing off trees and spreading and all the citys here are actually having the trees removed. Both, are great for turning, although some people dont care to much for turning Russian olive, it does have a beautiful dark brown color with a creamy white sap wood, and it is one of the few trees here that will produce a lot of burl here, although it is mostly root burl.
Lots of cities and towns are removing them. I saw a pile of short logs at a nearby post office yesterday. Wasn’t driving my truck.
Might contact the public works and road depts and they might load up a truck or trailer if you show up at the right time. The county road crew used to bring and dump logs on a spot on my property until I had to tell them to stop.
Tree removal service companies will usually give you more wood than you can ever use - saves them from disposing it.
County/municipal wood dumps can be a good source.
Might contact the public works and road depts and they might load up a truck or trailer if you show up at the right time. The county road crew used to bring and dump logs on a spot on my property until I had to tell them to stop.
Tree removal service companies will usually give you more wood than you can ever use - saves them from disposing it.
County/municipal wood dumps can be a good source.
Just to be clear for everyone, there are different species called Bradford Pear that are very different trees. The variety located in the southeast U.S. is a nuisance and the wood splits easily.
There is a totally different Bradford Pear that is common in southeast Texas and probably other areas that is not a nuisance, and it is a wonderful wood for woodturning. It is one of the most common woods used by turners in this area and it does not have a big splitting problem like the other variety has.
There is a totally different Bradford Pear that is common in southeast Texas and probably other areas that is not a nuisance, and it is a wonderful wood for woodturning. It is one of the most common woods used by turners in this area and it does not have a big splitting problem like the other variety has.
Can you give us the genus and species names on both trees with identical common names?
Ric, the name Bradford Pear is one of several cultivars of the Callery Pear, a Chinese Bush that grows straight and erect with nasty thorns. Texasinvasives.org says there are no other species of tree that could be confused with the Callery pear (Texas Invasives: Pyrus calleryana). I suspect you are in an area where it has not yet begun to hybridize, but it will. All of the cultivars have been found to eventually start becoming fertile and become quite a nuisance.
I had them here in my yard in NC for 20 years before I started seeing seedlings, but when they started producing fertile seed they started popping up everywhere. Half the yards in my neighborhood still have them because people love the shape and spring flowers, but they really all should be destroyed. It has gone from a docile ornamental to a true kudzu like tree here only in the past decade.
There are a couple great Washington Post articles about this history, but they are behind a paywall. This article from the Harvard Arboretum goes into the history of the tree and how it began to revert to it's original form.
It really is a Frankenstein tree: The Rise and Fall of the Ornamental Callery Pear Tree
David I understand what you are saying and I am familiar with what is happening with the nuisance version of Bradford Pear in other parts of the country. The fact remains that there are totally different types of trees that are called Bradford Pear, and the type that is in my part of the country right now is not invasive, does not have thorns, does not have a cracking problem and it is a great wood to turn. Turners need to be aware that there is more than one type of tree called Bradford Pear.
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Part of your statement is not clear to me: "the wood splits easily." Do you mean:
- the green wood in log or blank form checks easily on the end grain (like almost every other species)
- left in log form it splits down the side easily as it dries (like dogwood)
- that a piece turned green cracks and splits easily as it dries and shrinks (I have no experience with this)
- splits easily with an axe when making firewood
- or something else, like the well-known weakness causing major branches to split off main trunk of the tree?
I've cut and turned a fair amount of Bradford Pear, all of it from the same Southeastern trees that are earning an increasingly bad reputation.
I haven't noticed a propensity for the wood itself to split when drying. For example, I have a bunch of dried blanks I cut from logs for drying. If the a blank does no contain the pith or significant juvenile wood and is properly sealed, Braford Pear dries reasonably, like other hard, dense, fine grained species.
This photo, posted recently to show using the weight method to track drying, has a nice BP blank at the top, cut in 2018, dry now and ready to turn. (as an indication of size, the green tape pieces are 2" and 1.5" wide.)
Wonderful wood to turn and carve. Takes fine detail well.
BTW, I've harvested and turned three different types of pear: the Bradford Pear, what I call common fruiting pear (we have Bartlett), and Asian Pear which bears a wonderful nearly spherical fruit. (There are many mature Asain pear trees on our property.) I have no Bradford pear trees.
JKJ