These thing are terrible after getting some height. I'm afraid an ice storm will be splitting these trees this winter.

Will cutting a few of the heavy branches be worth it?

 

While they look nice, Bradford Pears are some of the weakest trees around, especially as they get larger. Taking out some of the larger branches will help, just be careful with your cuts as you might make the tree look funny. If you screw up majorly, just take them down and replant with something more study.

 

The wind apparently took out a large chunk of my beautiful 20+ foot tall Bradford Pear last night. I'll have to wait till I get home to see the extent of the damage.

 

My parent's old house had 5 BPs along the driveway.. over the course of 20 years 3 of them had major limps fall off and land across the driveway. Luckily, my brother wasn't parked in his usual spot where the limp had fallen.

 

The felled branches.



The formerly symmetrical tree.



View from the back



The wind is very strong out of the south today (my home has a southern exposure). It basically blew the back half of the tree out. Bummer, that's gonna cost me some $$$.

 

We trimmed our Bradford's twice a year... once in the spring and once in the fall. This allowed us to keep a nice symmetrical shape while still removing any branches which may be susceptible to breakage from winter or spring/summer storms...

 

$1000 to remove the tree, dig out the roots, expand the landscaping a bit to get the tree a little more away from the house, and put in a new pear tree of a different variety (grows a little less broad than the Bradford).



That's like almost the cost of a nice bike wheel.



Or almost the cost of a Powertap SL+.

 

Go rent a chainsaw and cut it down to the stump.. get some stump killer and let it die. $100 max

 

Then I can also take the chain saw and cut my house down to the foundation and put a trailer there.



No, I want to put another tree in that spot.

 

Cut it down yourself, pay for stump removal, expand the bedding, and plant a new tree yourself ...put you out about $200-250. That's actually a fairly easy DIY tree removal. If this isn't a DIY project for you, I'd say get another quote as the one you got seems a tad high. I'd say $300 for tree, $100 for stump, $300 for a new tree installed (30 gal or root ball...5-7').

 

It's going to be a more mature tree than that, and um, no, I'm going to leave the cutting of the tree and the digging of the dirt to people who want to do it. It'll be done on Tuesday morning.