The Vanishing Pear Trees

The adjacent neighborhood is known for its Bradford Pear-treelined streets. I took a walk today to see if I could capture a shot of their beautiful canopy. I was amazed to see that many of them are gone. The very long diagonal branches make them very vulnerable to wind damage. In recent years we have had more severe storms and in June of 2012 we experienced an unusual weather phenomenon called a "durecho." A durecho is very different from a regular thunderstorm in that its winds are straight and reach hurricane or tornado force speed. This one left a 700 mile path of destruction that included some of these trees as well as the beautiful 30 year old tree in our backyard which came down completely and took out our deck with it. We were grateful it didn't land on the house.

I went back through my old photos and found some that I had taken in March of 2012 of the pear trees. You can see one of those photos here. I would guess that 1/3 of those trees are gone now.