Bradford pear was, for about thirty years, the most planted street tree in American suburbs. Fast growing, tidy oval shape, spectacular white bloom in early spring, tolerant of bad soil. Developers planted them by the thousand across Howard County in the 1980s and 90s.
Essentially every claim in that pitch turned out to have a catch, and in January 2026 Maryland made it official by adding Callery pear — the species that includes the 'Bradford' cultivar — to the state's Prohibited Invasive Plant List. That restricts sale and distribution after a phase-out period. To be clear about what it does not do: it does not require you to remove a tree already growing in your yard. Nobody is coming for your pear tree.
But you probably want to deal with it anyway, and the reason is structural rather than regulatory.
The structural flaw: they are built to break
Bradford pear's fatal defect is in how it branches. Limbs emerge from nearly the same point on the trunk at very narrow, upright angles. Where two branches press together that tightly, the wood doesn't fuse — bark gets trapped in the union instead. That's included bark, and it means the connection is a seam rather than a weld.
For the first fifteen years, nothing goes wrong. Then the limbs get heavy enough that the seams can't hold, and the tree comes apart — typically in an ice storm, a wet snow, or a summer thunderstorm with the canopy in full leaf. The failure mode is dramatic: a third of the tree peels away from the trunk, usually taking a strip of trunk bark down with it.
Most Bradford pears fail between 15 and 25 years old. Which means the ones planted across Howard County subdivisions in the 80s and 90s are well past that window. If yours is still intact, it is on borrowed time rather than proving the rule wrong.
Once a Bradford pear loses a major limb, it rarely recovers a stable structure. The remaining unions carry the same defect, the wound opens the trunk to decay, and the tree becomes progressively more lopsided. Homeowners often try to save these after a first failure; it usually just delays a second, less predictable one.
The invasive part
Bradford pear was sold as sterile, and individually it nearly is — it can't pollinate itself. What nobody anticipated was how many different Callery pear cultivars would be planted alongside it. Cross-pollinate two cultivars and you get viable fruit, birds eat and distribute it, and the seedlings revert to the wild Callery pear form: thorny, dense, and aggressive.
You've seen the result along Maryland highways and field edges — those thickets that flower brilliant white in early spring before anything else leafs out. They form dense stands that crowd out native trees, and the thorns are stout enough to puncture tractor tires. That's the reason for the prohibited listing.
Several states run "bounty" programs offering free native trees in exchange for removing Callery pears — North Carolina and South Carolina have active ones. Maryland has made the regulatory move but, as of this writing, we're not aware of a statewide homeowner bounty program. If that changes, it would be worth watching; ask your county extension office.
And the smell
Worth mentioning since it's often what finally motivates the call. The spring bloom smells genuinely unpleasant — commonly compared to rotting fish. For two weeks a year, a mature Bradford pear near your front door is a real quality-of-life issue.
What removal involves
The good news: Bradford pears are relatively easy to remove. They're medium-sized — typically 30 to 50 feet — with soft, light wood and no enormous structural limbs. A straightforward front-yard pear with reasonable access is one of the more affordable removals we do. Our Ellicott City removal cost guide covers how size and access drive pricing.
Two cautions specific to this species. A pear that has already partially failed is more dangerous than an intact one — the remaining unions are under abnormal load and can release unpredictably during the work, which is a reason not to attempt one yourself after a storm. And Callery pear resprouts aggressively from the stump. Cut one flush and leave it, and you'll be fighting a thicket of shoots within a season. Grinding the stump is not cosmetic here; it's part of actually removing the tree.
If yours is in a Columbia village, check the architectural committee requirements before scheduling — most Columbia covenants require written approval for removing trees over 6 inches in diameter, and a mature pear is well past that.
What to plant instead
If you liked the early white bloom, Maryland natives give you the same effect with none of the structural problems: serviceberry (early white flowers, edible berries, good fall color), flowering dogwood, eastern redbud for magenta spring color, or American hornbeam for a tough, well-structured small tree. For a larger shade tree, blackgum and red maple both give excellent fall color and sound structure.
Any of these will outlive a Bradford pear by a wide margin, largely because none of them are built to tear themselves apart.
Have a Bradford pear you'd rather remove on your schedule than during an ice storm? Call 410-826-9006 for a free written estimate anywhere in Howard County.