Fifth Avenue Forum

I just moved the lawn. Intention was to speed mow to suck up the remaining leaves and other tree junk. But there was actual grass growth that occurred.

Nice little brown and green mix for the compost pile though

An invasive and smelly pear tree is called a noxious weed by some.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has decided to place a ban on the Callery Pear. Soon, it will be on the banned list for nurseries and landscapers across the Commonwealth.

“The Callery Pear tree is originally from southeast Asia. It was first introduced into the U.S. in the early 1900s. Because it’s a hardy tree, they hoped could correct some of the problems they were having with pear breeding,” Wilkes University Biology Professor William Terzaghi said.

Problems that did not stop with tree breeding.

“It would help other varieties of pear trees bear more fruit. So it was developed with good intent but without knowing what the long-term impact may be. They found that with time, it spreads, it naturalizes and spreads. It takes over wooded borders and areas surrounding agricultural fields,” Shannon Powers of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture said.

The flowers are known to have an awful smell when blooming and have multiple ways to create more Callery Pear trees.

“It’s a tough plant to eradicate because it not only disperses by seed but it also disperses vegetatively. So if you break off little bits of it, it will sprout again,” Terzaghi said.

The tree is quite popular and can still be found in some stores and nurseries.

“That’s part of the reason we have phased in the ban. To give nurseries a chance to eliminate the plant from their stock and to develop alternatives. That nursery and owner can give them an alternative that’s not invasive and native. And will have benefits to our environment and not detrimental,” Powers said.

The ban will go into Phase 1 next week as nurseries are asked to reduce their inventory of the tree.

Anyone have a tree trimming and/or removal service that they like that also services Westmoreland County? I need to get a maple trimmed and also need to get a quote to remove four very large pines.

Penn Line out of Scottdale is good. My wife, sister, and uncle work there. That probably impacts the pricing I get but worth a shot?

A few others I've had friends use were Stockton tree service and Browns tree service.

We're actually having a big tree removed from our backyard as I type this. Not sure if they're in Westmoreland, but we use Davey tree service. They've done a few jobs for us and no complaints / good pricing.

Didn't think I'd be this emotional about the one coming down today. They had a hard time identifying it, but landed on some sort of mountain ash. It got infested with some sort of tiny beetle evidently. Trunk was rotting on one side and half of the tree didn't leaf this year...and its close enough to the house to cause some damage.

Still, though, gonna miss it. The spring color of the leaves was that light bright green. Absolutely beautiful. We took some samples to see if we can propagate.

Sad.