Backyard & hedge favourites
Ornamental Pear
Pyrus calleryana
If a Melbourne garden was landscaped in the last twenty years, there's a fair chance it has ornamental pears in it. Developers, landscapers and councils plant them by the thousands for their neat shape, white spring blossom and toughness, which makes them one of the trees Jordan is asked about most.
How to spot an ornamental pear
Blossom
Clouds of five-petalled white flowers in late winter and early spring, usually before or with the first leaves. Up close, each flower has dark maroon anthers at its centre.
Leaves
Glossy, rounded to heart-shaped with finely scalloped edges, on long stalks that let them flutter in any breeze.
Autumn
One of the last trees to colour: rich burgundy, red and orange, often holding leaves into early winter while everything else is bare.
Form
Neat and upright, from narrow columns to teardrop shapes depending on the cultivar (Capital, Chanticleer and Cleveland Select are common here).
Fruit
Tiny, hard, brown pears the size of a marble. Easy to miss, and nothing like an eating pear.
Where you'll see it around the south east
New estates, townhouse driveways, shopping strip plantings and refreshed gardens across the whole south east, from Armadale to Hampton. Councils use them heavily as street trees because they cope with compacted soil and drought.
Worth knowing
The species comes from China and was originally imported to the US as rootstock for orchard pears before its ornamental cultivars took over the nursery trade. Some cultivars are known for forming tight, narrow branch unions as they mature, one reason formative pruning while a tree is young is time well spent.
Easily confused with
Crabapples and ornamental plums blossom in the same season, but plums flower earlier with pinkish tones and purple leaves, and crabapples show pink-tinged buds. The pear's glossy fluttering leaf and maroon-centred white flower are the tells.
Think this is your tree? Or still not sure?
Either way, a couple of photos in the quote form is all Jordan needs to identify it. Every tree is different, so what yours needs is always assessed in person, never from a guide.
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