Forget the guy that wants to trim two mature pears for $240. If he's not family trying to do you some huge favor, he's probably a sham that doesn't know what he's doing.

Don't use the guy that wants to paint the cuts. Painting over pruning wounds is an old practice that has been found to do more harm than good (in almost all cases). It's like going to the doctor for a cold and being told that leaches are recommended.

A light layer of leaves (not touching the trunk) won't hurt, but a thick layer of leaves may cause problems. If you do use leaves, you may want to keep them fluffed up so that moisture and gasses aren't blocked. Never let the leaves pile up against the trunk because that can greatly increase the chances of pest damage, disease, and rot.

Are you having the trees pruned in hopes of getting them to produce fruit?

gary1-2007, do you have pictures of your pear trees you can post via photobucket?

I'm assuming these are Bradford type callery pears. They do benefit from thinning.

The suckers need cut.

Painting...bleh, who knows what to use. I benefit from wound sealers. Trees encapsulate open wounds considerably slower than I do, especially older trees. Bradford types seem to fail from poor branching structure as opposed to rot.

Do you have any references on any of the trimming companies? I frequently don't buy the absolute cheapest thing at the store.

"I'm assuming these are Bradford type callery pears."

This may be the case, but 30' is pretty large for a callery pear in NC. If it is the case, prune at ground level and be done with it! I will be somewhat surprised if someone is really considering spending much money to have a larger callery pear pruned. Like the majority around here, I'm definitely not a fan of callery pears. But, if I was somehow forced to have one, I might consider pruning it at an early age (training/preventative maintenance) but not when it got 30' tall.

"They do benefit from thinning."

Yep, sometimes you can get another 6 months out of them, but other times (especially on more mature callerys) the pruning just initiates the disintegration phase.

"Painting...bleh, who knows what to use. I benefit from wound sealers. Trees encapsulate open wounds considerably slower than I do, especially older trees."

I haven't seen ANY research to support the use of wound sealer when pruning callery pears. I have seen loads and loads of research that strongly contraindicate this practice. See the link below for a typical summary of current thought on the subject.

Gary, we need input from you on this. I had jumped to the conclusion that you were tackling an older fruiting pear tree that had fell out of production (because you indicated you were willing to spend money to prune the tree). If it is a callery pear you have, you may want to consider using this opportunity to replace the tree with something decent (longer lived, not invasive, not bad smelling when in bloom, etc) rather than spend money on what is probably a lost cause in the long run.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Myth of Wound Dressings

Brandon, btw I do not totally disagree with you about wound dressing. Just stirring the discussion with the another point of view.

Hi Gary1,

What is the goal of pruning the trees? Clearance? To improve branch structure? To shear them into a shape? To force them to put out more flowers? To make them smaller? None of the above?

Without knowing what type of pruning is going on, it's going to be hard for anyone to give you an answer.

Grandma, one would assume these old pears are typically crowded and poor crotches and weak angles, and are getting ready to split and lose 1/3 the crown, so the OP is looking to minimize impending damage. All very typical, standard, to be expected.

And I agree that the 240 is a ridiculous price even for someone trying to keep a crew working, and someone painting cuts shouldn't get the bid either. I wouldn't hire a crew that didn't have ISA after their name for that tree (we had a grove of callery pear at UCD for the urban forestry students to practice difficult pruning on).

Lastly, about the leaf pile, if there were spots on the leaves last summer and a few fruit, the leaf pile is the place where pathogens will sleep happily over the winter.

Dan

I assumed that it was billy bob, knocking on doors, trying to drum up topping jobs for the slow season.

Not a bad assumption!

Dan

if you are REALLY contemplating $1000 for some pruning .. JUST CUT THEM DOWN ....

that will also solve the lawn issue ...

ken

Yes, once again Ken clarifies and makes explicit what I was...erm...impliciting.

These trees very likely won't last that much longer and probably not worth that expenditure.

Dan