Hood Pear

Richard · January 26, 2018, 11:46pm

This week I topped it at 7 foot, thinned out numerous upright canes, and left fruit spurs down near the crotch.

39thparallel · January 28, 2018, 8:13am

Nice! I am loving the putting green / orchard. You have been doing a ton or work there.

Lizzy · January 28, 2018, 11:37am

I have Hood grafted to a root sucker from my big old Winter Nelis, as a backup for when the big tree gets completely devoured by termites. (It was very badly maintained before we got here.) The Hood mini-tree grows well, but it never goes dormant. Is that a problem? It seems to me to be like a person who doesn’t get any sleep–that somehow the tree won’t get replenished, but maybe that’s my imagination. I’ve complained elsewhere about UFO peach branches never going dormant either, and it suddenly occurred to me that I shouldn’t assume it’s a bad thing…

Richard · January 28, 2018, 4:56pm

@Lizzy – No worries.

Richard · March 4, 2018, 7:28pm

Hood Pear blossoms

Cafeaulait · March 5, 2018, 3:23am

Lol, mine’s blooming too --in NC! But we had all that really warm weather for February. It’ll probably not bloom too early here most years like I suspected it might.

Auburn · March 5, 2018, 3:47am

My Hood is also blooming

jeremymillrood · March 14, 2018, 5:43pm

I don’t have a hood, but it’s one that I’m considering.

Cafeaulait · March 15, 2018, 3:31am

I was halfway wrong; my Hood is sitting there with unopened blooms, so not ‘blooming’. That works better, weather-wise, but I’ll have to see if the old pears of my neighbor will keep on blooming that long. They still are now.

I’m so surprised those blooms didn’t open yet, but I’m actually not used to pear blooms! It’s working much better than bloom with our temps, so it’s a good thing.

Richard · March 15, 2018, 3:39am

When I grew Hood in zone 9, it would have very few blossoms in the early spring but the main bloom happened in May and the harvest in the Fall.

Richard · September 10, 2018, 1:11am

First ripe fruit of the season

Richard · September 20, 2018, 10:38pm

Harvested 4 more today

Richard · January 7, 2019, 9:20pm

This year I decided to top my taller deciduous trees at 8 feet – so I made an 8’ standard from a length of PVC pipe. Here’s photos of the before and after.