DAMAGED TREE

MY NON-BEARING PEAR TREE LOST ABOUT 1/3 OF IT'S TOTAL BODY IN YESTERDAY'S STORM. WHAT SHOULD I DO TO THE SPOT WHERE THE LIMB CAME OUT FROM THE TRUNK OF THE PART OF THE TREE LEFT? THE VACANT SPOT (WITH DECAY)IS AS BIG AROUND AS A WASHTUB. WOULD THE BLACK TREE SPRAY BE ENOUGH TO PREVENT LOSS OF THE TREE? THE TREE EXPERT HERE IN TOWN TOLD ME ABOUT 3 YEARS AGO I SHOULD REPLACE THE TREE, AS THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO WELL WHEN THEY GET AS LARGE AS MINE; THAT WATER WOULD SETTLE INTO THE "CROTCH" WHERE THE LIMBS CONNECT AND CAUSE DECAY. HE WAS VERY RIGHT! IF I LOSE THE TREE, WHAT ARE YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A REPLACEMENT? I HAVE FULL SUN. THANKS. DOC

Pears are generally very short lived trees to begin with, so you may be better off replacing it. But if you want to wait and see how it does, the best thing for trees that are damaged like this is to leave them alone and let them try to heal themselves. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't, but the sprays, etc that they sell for situations like this tend to do more harm than good. However, since you said there's decay already in the crotch, I really don't think your tree will live for too much longer anyway--if it had lost a big branch but the wood underneath was healthy it might be able to recover, but since it sounds like it was rotting already before the branch fell off I don't think there's too much hope. So personally, I would replace the tree now with something else, maybe a nice Texas native tree. I don't know much about what grows well for you, but hopefully someone else will have some good suggestions for replacements.

Follow the advice of your tree expert - remove your existing pear tree. It will cause nothing but problems in the future.

If the location is somewhere that you don't mind potentially messy fruit drop, I would recommend the native Mexican plum - a stellar tree in all regards including drought tolerance, insect and disease resistance, masses of white blooms that fade to pink in spring with a very heavy, perfumed scent that can be smelled from hundreds of feet away, exfoliating bark, a beautiful habit, and finally small plums that make outstanding plum preserves if you are up to it. If this doesn't appeal to you, the native Texas Persimmon is also a lovely tree with many fine attributes that should be available and do well in your area.

One possiblility is to cut off at an angle below the rot and hope it sends up new shoots. Give the cambium a very light coating of 10% trolamine salicylate (Aspercreme), then cover the whole stump witn a non-drying oil (olive, mineral).

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) - I even have seedlings that will be ready to plant next spring. Just email me if you want one or more. You'll have a 20 foot tree in 8 years easily...maybe 6 in your climate.

Get rid of that damaged "mess".

Dax

Second the Dawn Redwood. We planted one about 3 years ago and that thing puts on at least a couple of feet a year. It also has the most beautiful, soft needles and is a very ancient tree to boot (which makes it interesting to history buffs like DH and me).