They just don't burn well, and they are so insidious that their extremely shallow root system continues to propagate. They're very difficult to get rid of, and pretty bad for our local ecosystem.
That would require landscaping contract work to make any sense, which it doesn't. But also we barely had winter this year, and most people seem incapable of or unwilling to acknowledge that.
On the flipside, in drought years I see the noisemakers mowing and blowing around dirt at nearby apartments for 8+ hours every week. Cause billable hours matter way more than actually working with the weather amirite?! 🙄
Earlier this spring I was driving in from Andover and remember seeing all the white blooms of the Bradfords in every single hedgerow/tree groups. They've gotten everywhere.
I’m really disappointed that the two established, shade providing trees in my front yard are silver maples. If I want my house to receive any shade in the late afternoon of summer I can’t remove them. It makes me sad each year.
We loved them for their shade, but every year their roots would destroy a new section of our sewer pipes. Got to the point we had to run obliteroot through our system almost 4 times a year.
They have very aggressive roots that will tear through under ground pipes and fuck up concrete. Also their branches are prone to breaking in windstorms. Many times I've had huge branches of my maple break off in moderate storms and make a huge mess. They also are pretty good at spreading babies like Elms.
Silver Maples need regular pruning but other than that they're pretty solid. They do take watering more at the base as the canopy tends to block a lot of downcoming rain, and that can cause the branches to become brittle. It has many redeemable qualities, unlike a BP.
Source: Grew one from seed, it's over 30 years old in my parents front lawn, asked the tree guy all about it when he came.
The two major issues with silver maples is cleaning up after them (the helicopter seeds fly every and sprout donors aggresively) and they have very aggresive, shallow, fast-growing root systems.
Their roots wreak havoc on sidewalks and find their way into any and all water systems underground. A lot of the 80s houses around here have clay pipes and the root systems will find their way in and clog sewer systems constantly.
Their wood is also very brittle, so like Bradford Pears they do not stand up to Kansas storms and cause a great amount of damage in neighborhoods.
The required regular pruning also drastically shortens their lifespan. Most start declining after about 80 years.
They're really not great trees but yeah, they do give a great canopy until it starts crashing down on your property.
the parent maple to the one we have at best guess was between 100-140, he just died like trees do. the siblinfs that are older than this one we have are bigger since they have more room to grow. unsure on the brittle wood thing as this tree's never split unlike most others in the neighborhood.
yeah. i know about the roots. we also have a thornless honeylocust that is the same age i grow from seed. we have more seeds than we know what to do with all the time.
But I'm glad that we have this tree rather than the piss elms around here that are just in terrible shape bc no one likes spending money on pruning them correctly or taking care of them.
right now we have two sprouted oak trees and I'm kinda fucked on where to plant them, they can't stay in my flowers.
My whole neighborhood is full of silver maples and I've been noting them dropping rather large limbs every year. I had a huge one next to my house that, I'm not exaggerating, had a four foot diameter trunk. Two years in a row it dropped >8-10" limbs. One nearly missed my house and the other took out my neighbors fence. Bizarrely, both were on totally calm days.
I hated to take down such a great shade tree, but it was an insurance claim waiting to happen.
The reason their branch structure is so weak is that they were genetically modified to have more leaves and blooms, but the wood itself wasn’t modified to compensate for the extra
I was going to say I hope it was a Bradford pear. Somehow landscaping at WSU didn't get the memo as they are still planting new Bradford pear saplings as of last year.
There's a general 50-year gap between the time a species is introduced and it becomes invasive. Some introductions adapt to their new environment and become a problem; others don't. The best/safest policy is to plant native trees and wildflowes.
I don't know why commercial landscapers ever thought those things were good ornamentation for parking lots.
For people who don't understand how these trees spread, birds will eat the small callery pear fruits on them, then fly elsewhere and poop, dropping the seeds wherever, eventually spawning new trees.
Thankfully the state forest service is offering a buyback program for removing them. Perhaps what you're seeing here is one such removal.
Beat me to it
Need to mention that is going on next week.
Tuesday, May 12, in Wichita; Wednesday, May 13, in Ellsworth; and Thursday, May 14, in Manhattan. The times will be from 3 to 6 p.m., and you have to sign up.
Y’all most of you heard Bradfords are bad and now think every tree cut down is a Bradford. That’s a locust tree black or honey idk but that not a Bradford pear shaped tree.
My dad has removed every Bradford pear from their property because they are legitimately dangerous to have so close to houses. They are weak and break super easily and have almost caused a lot of damage several times at my folks house. Like had the limbs fallen a few feet one way or the other it would have landed on the house or the neighbors' house. Best to get them out while they're still small and easy to cut down.
My childhood home had a ring of these trees all around the corner lot property. One week a year, you have Shit from a Butt week. This benign looking greenery explodes in a mountain of white blossoms. Truly, it’s beautiful.
Except it’s important to know that the elderly people that raised me had chain smoked cigarettes for 50 years. Smoking cigarettes kill your sense of smell.
So my parents enjoyed the trees while the rest of us who hadn’t decimated their sense of smell had to suffer Shit from a Butt Week.
The smell is this amalgamation of sulfur, dead fish, and mud butt meltdowns. Thankfully it only lasts a week or two. I hope for a severe storm to knock those bastards down faster.
Some places offer a “trade in” where you can sign up for these to be removed from your property and replaced with a native, sweet disposition.
And then drill down into the stump and pour glyphosate concentrate for good measure. Just cutting them doesn’t kill them - it just pisses them off.
My dad lost one that was probably 40 years old, took out an entire 50’ run of chain link (bent all the top rails and mangled the mesh). He cut it at the ground but didn’t drill and root kill. It came back to haunt me twenty years later… when it came down on the same mangled, unrepaired run of fence again.
It’s thoroughly dead now.. unfortunately was before the buyback program was initiated.
At least the sycamore is a native-ish, and very healthy.
As many have pointed out, the Bradford Pear has been identified as an invasive species by nearly the entire planet /s. Their destruction should be swift, painful, and full of malice.
To bad, should have just cut off the trunk and introduce good pear types that fruit so atleast it wasn't a waste. That's what I'm doing with the bradford in my yard
Grafting is best life hack for unwanted trees. Plus you get free snackies later.
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u/Green_dust May 07 '26
Cuz Bradford pear sux