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enjoy the ride
Sufficient Life
The upward fast growing shoots are called watersprouts and most books recommend pruning them off.
Your zone is a borderline one for pears but lots of apples can take that kind of cold. That may be why no pear blossoms.
The apples may just need a little more time as standard sized trees take more time to produce than the dwarf apple will.
If you want pears, I would check around with your local gardening center to see if they have one that is more cold tolerant than any I know about in my zone 7 area.
The only thing I can think to do with the pear, is to plant it in a spot where the sun doesn't fully warm it til later in spring- if you can delay the breaking of dormancy by a bit, you might succeed in getting the blossoming after the last killing frost.
I do that with some of my trees because of the amount of rain here in the spring. I planted them where they are pretty much in shade in most of the winter. Hoping that when the sun finally reaches them, it will have delayed bloom until there is less rain to wash off the blossoms.
Everywhere has it's problems. In checking for the hardiness of pears, I found that Bartlett is susceptible to fireblight which is a real possiblity for me- oh well, should have thought of that before I bought it.
Your zone is a borderline one for pears but lots of apples can take that kind of cold. That may be why no pear blossoms.
The apples may just need a little more time as standard sized trees take more time to produce than the dwarf apple will.
If you want pears, I would check around with your local gardening center to see if they have one that is more cold tolerant than any I know about in my zone 7 area.
The only thing I can think to do with the pear, is to plant it in a spot where the sun doesn't fully warm it til later in spring- if you can delay the breaking of dormancy by a bit, you might succeed in getting the blossoming after the last killing frost.
I do that with some of my trees because of the amount of rain here in the spring. I planted them where they are pretty much in shade in most of the winter. Hoping that when the sun finally reaches them, it will have delayed bloom until there is less rain to wash off the blossoms.
Everywhere has it's problems. In checking for the hardiness of pears, I found that Bartlett is susceptible to fireblight which is a real possiblity for me- oh well, should have thought of that before I bought it.