Saturday, August 22, 2009

Don't mess with the Bradford Pears! - A special JAZ Guest Blog.

JAZ here. JanetLee gave me permission to guest blog on KotK today.

I was mowing the grass when JanetLee pointed out some weird web-like stuff enclosing a couple of the lower branches of one of the Bradford Pear trees.

It was obviously killing the leaves. This is not a good thing.

I am not sure if it is a fungus or the handiwork of some kind of evil spider-like monster that hates Bradford Pears, but either way, I want it gone so that my big, beautiful trees can stay healthy.

I went to the shed, grabbed a saw and some pruning seal, and proceeded to amputate the branches that were damaged. Luckily, it seems like only two very low branches have been impacted by this.

Here is another look at the damage:



If anyone has any insight into what might be the culprit (or, more to the point, how I might successfully get rid of the culprit), that would be extremely copacetic.

We live in a semi-tropical climate near a marsh, if that's any help.



Thor sez: "Let me at those spider monsters! I'll teach them not to hurt the Bradford Pears!"

3 comments:

Pixel Peeper said...

I'm not a gardener or an expert on plant life, but I remember all the Bradford Pears in South Carolina and how beautiful they looked when blooming!

The Clemson University has a publication on Bradford Pears, and it has something about fire blight in the article. Not sure if that's what's affecting your Bradford Pear trees, but the link is here (scroll down to "Bradford Pears" for the PDF or their publication):

http://dprod4.clemson.edu/olos/asp/searchresults.asp?s=Horticulture

I hope this link works - if not, go to the Clemson University website and look for "Public Service Publishing."

Good luck!

Pat said...

Looks like tent worms to me...in my very inexpert opinion.

JaxCC said...

I love that you created a category called "fungus or spider monsters?" I look forward to more posts in this category. ;-)