Don't let this happen to your tree!
A Bradford Pear is a beautiful, self pruning tree that was made from a regular pear tree. A man literally took the trunk of the pear tree and attached the new thornless, fruitless, part of the tree on the top. They call it grafting. What happens with the Bradford Pear tree is the branches grow extremely fast, making them very weak. The trunk of the tree is slower growing, and when they grafted the new part on, they usually put three main branches going up off the trunk. That was recipe for failure and we didn’t know it. Those three branches out grew the trunk strength and next thing we knew, one of the three branches could not withstand a strong wind and down it went. Then your tree looked very lopsided.
They have recently developed alternatives to the Bradford Pear, and came up with the Callery Pear, and the Cleveland Pear. They all look identical, but they have slowed the growth of the branches in order to allow the whole tree to grow uniformly in size. Great alternatives if you still want to plant a pear tree for the blooms in the spring.
A trick that professional landscapers have figured out is if a pear tree is pruned about every 3-5 years, it will never break and always look great. The pruning needs to be done during the dormant season of the tree. That would mean it needs to be done between Christmas and February. Cutting the main branches about 6 ft. from the trunk and cutting all the branches around in a circular form all the way around the tree is all that needs to be done. It can easily be done standing on a short ladder. The worst part of pruning this tree is cleaning up the mess afterward. The following spring you will need to plan to hand prune the lower branches as it puts off new growth, just to help you mow under it and to encourage up growth instead of down growth.
Proper pruning will definitely extend the life of your tree and keep the wife happy because the tree won’t be lopsided! Just know that the first season after pruning, the tree is in recovery mode. It will not be the perfect teardrop shaped tree until late in the season. The second year after pruning, no one will ever know that you touched the tree.
Happy Pruning