Pear
Pyrus communis
Long-lived orchard tree — nasturtium lures its codling moth aside.
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Yellow
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Deep, fertile, well-drained
- Feeding
- A balanced spring feed, going easy on the nitrogen.
- USDA zones
- 4a–8b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Winter-prune free-standing trees, and summer-prune the trained forms.
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 160 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- at the first fall frost
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–May Flowering
- May–Sep Fruit Set
- Sep–Oct Harvest
- Oct–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 13 ft 1 in
- In-row spacing
- 13 ft 1 in
- Between rows
- 16 ft 5 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody, with a taproot it keeps
- Working depth
- 24 in–5 ft
- Can reach
- 10 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 20–33 ft across, about 1.5–2.5× the width of the plant
It anchors downwards as well as sideways, which is what lets it stand in a gale and what makes it hate being moved. Plant it small: past a few years in the ground a taprooted tree transplants badly, and often not at all.
The habit is Pear’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- August to October depending on variety; trees crop in 4–6 years (sooner on quince rootstock). Crucially, pears are almost always picked mature-but-hard and ripened off the tree — tree-ripened pears go mealy and brown at the core.
- What to look for
- Pick when the fruit is full-sized, the skin has lightened slightly, lenticels (skin dots) turn brown, and the pear comes away with the lift-and-twist test — tilt it horizontal and it should snap free at the stalk. It will still feel rock hard: that's correct. Ripeness for eating is judged later by gently pressing the flesh beside the stalk — it yields when ready (the base can still be firm).
- How to harvest
- Lift the pear to horizontal and twist gently; keep the stalk attached. Handle like eggs — pears bruise invisibly and rot from the bruise in store. Long-arm pickers for tall standards.
- How often
- One or two passes per variety over about a week; early varieties (e.g. Williams) all come at once, later keepers can be staggered.
- Storing the crop
- Ripen indoors at room temperature over 4–10 days (a banana alongside speeds it); check the neck daily — pears go from perfect to sleepy in about a day. To hold them, keep picked-hard fruit in a cold place (near 0–4°C) and bring batches indoors to ripen as needed; late varieties like Conference and Concorde keep 1–3 months this way. Excess poaches, bottles, and dries well.
- Codling moth Its caterpillars tunnel to the core of apples and pears, leaving frass-filled exit holes. Hang pheromone traps from late spring and pick up windfalls promptly.
- Fire blight A bacterial disease of the apple-pear family: blossoms and shoots look scorched black and hang on. Prune 30 cm below visible damage, sterilizing tools between cuts.
- Rust Pear rust
- Scab Pear scab
- Pear midge
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Bats ChiropteraHunts Codling moth
A single bat takes hundreds of moths and mosquitoes in a night, and the moths are the parents of your cutworms, corn earworms and hornworms. Put up a bat box on a warm south wall, leave a night-scented corner unlit, and never spray after dark.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Codling moth
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
Clover, Nasturtiums, Tansy, Borage
Good neighbors
Pears ripen best off the tree — pick them firm and let them soften indoors.
Green-leaved fruit, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com