Pear

About

The old saying runs that you plant pears for your heirs. It was true of trees on seedling rootstocks, which took a decade or more to crop and lived for centuries. Modern quince rootstocks have collapsed that timescale to three or four years.

Pears remain the harder half of the apple-and-pear pairing in Britain, for one reason. They flower two to three weeks earlier, which puts the blossom squarely in the path of late April frosts.

The other thing worth knowing before planting is the picking rule. A pear ripened on the tree is grainy and brown at the core. Pick it firm and ripen it indoors.

Appearance and character

A deciduous tree with a distinctly upright, narrow head compared with an apple, and darker, more fissured bark.

Leaves are oval, glossy, finely toothed and leathery, deeper green than an apple’s, colouring red and orange in autumn.

Blossom is pure white with dark anthers, opening in April before the leaves are fully out, in dense clusters that cover the tree.

Fruit is the familiar tapering shape in most varieties, and round in some, with skin in green, yellow, russet brown or flushed red.

Trained forms suit pears particularly well. An espalier on a warm south or west wall is the traditional and still the best way to grow them in Britain.

Where it is from

Eastern Europe and western Asia, in a broad band from the Caucasus through Asia Minor, where the wild pear still grows in woodland and scrub.

Cultivation goes back at least three thousand years, and the Romans grew dozens of named varieties and spread them across their empire, including into Britain.

The great age of pear breeding was in Belgium and France between about 1750 and 1850, which is where ‘Doyenne du Comice’, ‘Beurre Hardy’ and most of the classic dessert pears came from.

Asian pears are a different species, Pyrus pyrifolia, round and crisp and eaten firm, and they are not interchangeable in cultivation or in the kitchen.

The wild origin is warmer and more continental than Britain, which is why pears want the sunniest, most sheltered spot available here and repay a wall.

How it grows

Buy a grafted tree. Pears are grown on quince rootstocks, which control size and bring cropping forward. Quince C gives a tree of about 3 m and suits cordons and small gardens, and Quince A gives 4 to 5 m and is the general-purpose choice.

Some varieties, including ‘Williams’ and ‘Doyenne du Comice’, are incompatible with quince and are sold with an interstem of a compatible variety grafted between. Buy from a nursery rather than guessing.

Pollination works as it does for apples. Most pears need a different variety flowering at the same time, and varieties are grouped by flowering period. ‘Conference’ is partly self-fertile and crops after a fashion alone, and it does far better with a partner.

Plant bare-root from November to March with the graft union clear of the soil, and stake for the first few years.

Fruit forms on spurs that build up over years, so pear pruning is gentler than apple pruning and aimed at maintaining an open framework.

Thin the fruitlets in June to one or two per cluster.

Through the seasons

Winter is planting and pruning. Plant bare-root trees, and prune free-standing trees while dormant.

Spring brings very early blossom, from mid-April. Fleece small trees or wall trained forms when frost threatens, and feed and mulch in February.

Summer is thinning and training. Thin the fruitlets in June, and prune trained forms in August.

Autumn is the harvest, from late August for early varieties to October for late ones. Pick firm, and store the late varieties cool and dark.

Care difficulty

Moderate, and slightly harder than apples in Britain for reasons of climate rather than technique.

Frost at blossom is the main problem, and it is the reason a sheltered warm site matters so much for pears.

Pear rust has spread rapidly across Britain in the last twenty years and is now the commonest complaint.

Picking and ripening confuse people. A pear picked ripe is already going over inside, so the crop is taken firm and finished indoors.

Once established, the trees themselves are long-lived, hardy in wood, and need less pruning than apples.

Watering

Water newly planted trees weekly through their first three summers.

Pears are less drought-tolerant than apples and want moisture-retentive soil. Established trees still benefit from watering in a prolonged dry summer, especially those trained against a wall, where the soil at the foot stays dry.

A wall-trained pear needs watering in most summers, since the wall keeps rain off the root zone.

Mulch each spring with compost, keeping it clear of the trunk.

Irregular watering produces small hard fruit and can cause splitting.

Warning signs, diseases and pests

Pear rust is now the most common problem in British gardens. Bright orange spots appear on the upper leaf surface from midsummer, with brown warty growths beneath. The fungus alternates between pear and juniper, so removing nearby junipers helps where that is possible. Pick off affected leaves, rake up and bin fallen ones, and accept some level of it. Trees tolerate it better than their appearance suggests.

Pear midge causes young fruitlets to blacken and drop in May and June. Cut one open and you find small white maggots inside. Collect and destroy every affected fruitlet before the larvae reach the soil, and cultivate the ground beneath in winter.

Scab produces dark blotches on leaves and cracked corky patches on the fruit, worse in wet springs.

Pear and cherry slugworm are small black slug-like sawfly larvae that graze the upper leaf surface into a skeleton.

Frost damage shows as blackened flower centres. Cut a blossom open after a cold night to check.

Fruit that stays small and hard usually means drought or a lack of thinning.

Grainy brown flesh at the core means the fruit was left on the tree too long.

Growing environment

Full sun and shelter. Pears want the warmest position in the garden, and a south or west-facing wall is ideal in the north of Britain.

Deep, fertile, moisture-retentive but well-drained soil. Pears tolerate heavier ground than apples and dislike thin dry soil.

Avoid frost pockets absolutely. The early blossom makes this the single most important siting decision.

Match the rootstock to the space. Quince C for cordons and small gardens, Quince A for a free-standing tree.

Espaliers and fans against a wall are the classic British approach and they crop well in a small space.

Plant at least two compatible varieties where space allows, or check what neighbouring gardens hold.

Feeding

Apply a general-purpose fertiliser in late winter before growth starts.

Add sulphate of potash in early spring, which supports flowering and fruit quality and is the more useful of the two on an established tree.

Mulch with well-rotted manure or compost in spring, kept clear of the trunk.

Avoid heavy nitrogen, which encourages soft growth, scab and rust, and delays cropping.

Wall-trained trees need more attention than free-standing ones, since the soil at the foot of a wall is both drier and poorer.

Troubleshooting

Blossom every year and almost no fruit. Frost at flowering, or no compatible pollination partner. Pears flower early, so protect small trees on cold April nights and check the flowering group.

Bright orange spots all over the leaves. Pear rust. Remove affected leaves, bin fallen ones, and remove nearby junipers if you can. Trees cope with it.

Small fruitlets blackening and dropping in May. Pear midge. Cut one open to confirm the maggots, then collect and destroy every affected fruitlet.

The flesh is brown and grainy at the core. Left on the tree too long. Pick pears firm and ripen them indoors.

How do I know when to pick? Lift the fruit horizontally to the branch. If the stalk parts cleanly, it is ready to pick, even though it is not yet ready to eat.

The pear went from rock hard to mush in a day. That is pear behaviour. Check them daily and eat them at the brief point where the flesh yields at the neck.

The tree is enormous. Grown on a seedling or vigorous rootstock, or the graft union was buried. Use Quince C or A and keep the union clear of the soil.

When will it start cropping? Three to five years on Quince C or A. Trees on seedling rootstocks can take a decade.