Dying Bradford Pear tree? - Ask Extension
I have a Bradford pear tree (I think…) on our front lawn in Bel Air, MD. We’ve lived in the house since 2022, and over the last 2-4 years the tree...
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Dying Bradford Pear tree? #941606
Asked August 05, 2026, 11:59 AM EDT
I have a Bradford pear tree (I think…) on our front lawn in Bel Air, MD. We’ve lived in the house since 2022, and over the last 2-4 years the tree’s health seems to be declining. It still flowers well, albeit earlier than similar trees on our block, and it loses its leaves much earlier each year. One of the roots was severed and it grows a lot of suckers (some pictures, but I cut them down last week). Some leaves are wilting/falling off already, and most leaves have small holes (not sure if that’s disease, insects, or something else). If the tree is effectively dying, I’m hoping to figure out if/how it could be saved. Happy to provide more pictures. Thank you!
Harford County Maryland
Expert Response
The foliage (both the live green leaves still on the branch pictured, and those that have yellowed and fallen) is not that of Bradford Pear. Instead, it looks like one of the Asian flowering cherries, which are very widely planted. (Our native cherry trees look different and aren't usually planted as a decorative tree.)
There are dozens of flowering cherry cultivars, each with its own unique combination of traits like mature size, growth habit (upright, weeping, etc.), flower type (white or varying shades of pink, single or double petal counts), flowering season (early spring, mid-spring, late spring), and more. Your tree may be a different variety than the rest on your block if it's consistently flowering earlier.
Different cherry cultivars also vary in their tolerances or vulnerabilities to infection. There are several common diseases that cherries can contract, all of which will also vary in intensity from year to year based on weather patterns. The most common infection we see on nearly all flowering cherries is called Cherry Shot Hole Disease. It is a fungal or bacterial infection that causes leaf spots, which later usually develop holes where the spots were, and the affected leaves drop off early (and also usually turn yellow in the process). It can be difficult to tell apart which shot hole symptoms are due to the fungal versus bacterial pathogen, and the disease also affects relatives of flowering cherry trees, such as cherrylaurel shrubs.
If fungal in nature, the disease can be suppressed with cover sprays of fungicide starting in spring, but it must be applied well before symptoms appear and periodically re-applied to maintain protection. The entire canopy needs thorough and even coverage of the fungicide spray, but even then, it isn't foolproof and sometimes disease still breaks out, especially in a year with rainy spring weather. Since fungicide sprays may risk harm to pollinators and other beneficial organisms, and since this disease (while an eyesore) doesn't usually threaten the long-term health of the tree, we usually do not recommend their use. One simpler management approach with this disease is to rake up fallen leaves and dispose of them (don't compost) so they don't harbor infectious spores near the tree for the following year.
Overall, the pictured branch's symptoms look fairly mild (we tend to see much worse in our travels and in questions we get sent), even for the number of leaves on the ground in your photos. No fungicide can cure existing symptoms, so applications after leaves start dropping in summer will not provide any benefit. There is nothing you can do about the condition this late in the year, other than just raking up fallen leaves (not foolproof, but helpful) and making sure the tree isn't too stressed by drought by monitoring it for watering needs.
Suckers are a tree or shrub's response to the stress of having wood removed (whether pruned or broken off due to storm damage), and some species naturally sucker more than others regardless of their stress level. All you can do about suckers is to keep plucking them off as you find them (remove them as young as you can, since they are harder to discourage the older those sprouts get). As the tree's canopy shades that area more heavily with time, the sucker production from the trunk base will probably ease or stop.
One factor unrelated to the Shot Hole infection that can threaten long-term tree health is the base of the trunk. It is hard to see clearly with the knobby root attachment points and dark bark color, but there might be some girdling roots. Cherries are unfortunately one of the tree species more apt to form girdling roots, which you can learn about on the linked page. For roots that cannot easily be cut to prevent them from tightening around the trunk base, consult a certified arborist.
We recommend that the base of the tree be shielded from the surrounding lawn by a ring/zone of mulch. By having the lawn and weeds growing right up to the base of the tree, you risk getting injuries from mowers or string trimmers on the bark, which can develop into serious damage that attracts borers or infections of the wood that cannot be treated. The larger the tree, the wider the mulch zone should be to also help reduce root competition with the grass, but in this case, a mulched zone at least 2 or 3 feet out from the trunk in all directions would be helpful. Keep the mulch layer only about 2 to 3 inches thick, flat (not mounded), and not piled against the bark itself.
Compared to some species of flowering trees, cherries tend to be somewhat short-lived, with 2 to 3 decades being a common "useful" lifespan before they decline too much aesthetically due to accumulating disease or pest damage. That said, they are capable of living a century or more, but in our region, we find that they usually struggle past that 20-30 year point unless they are growing is very ideal conditions and avoided any major injuries. (Cherries down in the D.C. Tidal Basin commonly decline and get replaced due to the soil compaction and/or saturation they have to tolerate.)
We can't see how your tree looks overall, but if the rest of the canopy looks similar to the foliage in the close-up, it doesn't look that bad and will probably live for many more years if problems with girdling roots and trunk base injury can be avoided.
Miri
There are dozens of flowering cherry cultivars, each with its own unique combination of traits like mature size, growth habit (upright, weeping, etc.), flower type (white or varying shades of pink, single or double petal counts), flowering season (early spring, mid-spring, late spring), and more. Your tree may be a different variety than the rest on your block if it's consistently flowering earlier.
Different cherry cultivars also vary in their tolerances or vulnerabilities to infection. There are several common diseases that cherries can contract, all of which will also vary in intensity from year to year based on weather patterns. The most common infection we see on nearly all flowering cherries is called Cherry Shot Hole Disease. It is a fungal or bacterial infection that causes leaf spots, which later usually develop holes where the spots were, and the affected leaves drop off early (and also usually turn yellow in the process). It can be difficult to tell apart which shot hole symptoms are due to the fungal versus bacterial pathogen, and the disease also affects relatives of flowering cherry trees, such as cherrylaurel shrubs.
If fungal in nature, the disease can be suppressed with cover sprays of fungicide starting in spring, but it must be applied well before symptoms appear and periodically re-applied to maintain protection. The entire canopy needs thorough and even coverage of the fungicide spray, but even then, it isn't foolproof and sometimes disease still breaks out, especially in a year with rainy spring weather. Since fungicide sprays may risk harm to pollinators and other beneficial organisms, and since this disease (while an eyesore) doesn't usually threaten the long-term health of the tree, we usually do not recommend their use. One simpler management approach with this disease is to rake up fallen leaves and dispose of them (don't compost) so they don't harbor infectious spores near the tree for the following year.
Overall, the pictured branch's symptoms look fairly mild (we tend to see much worse in our travels and in questions we get sent), even for the number of leaves on the ground in your photos. No fungicide can cure existing symptoms, so applications after leaves start dropping in summer will not provide any benefit. There is nothing you can do about the condition this late in the year, other than just raking up fallen leaves (not foolproof, but helpful) and making sure the tree isn't too stressed by drought by monitoring it for watering needs.
Suckers are a tree or shrub's response to the stress of having wood removed (whether pruned or broken off due to storm damage), and some species naturally sucker more than others regardless of their stress level. All you can do about suckers is to keep plucking them off as you find them (remove them as young as you can, since they are harder to discourage the older those sprouts get). As the tree's canopy shades that area more heavily with time, the sucker production from the trunk base will probably ease or stop.
One factor unrelated to the Shot Hole infection that can threaten long-term tree health is the base of the trunk. It is hard to see clearly with the knobby root attachment points and dark bark color, but there might be some girdling roots. Cherries are unfortunately one of the tree species more apt to form girdling roots, which you can learn about on the linked page. For roots that cannot easily be cut to prevent them from tightening around the trunk base, consult a certified arborist.
We recommend that the base of the tree be shielded from the surrounding lawn by a ring/zone of mulch. By having the lawn and weeds growing right up to the base of the tree, you risk getting injuries from mowers or string trimmers on the bark, which can develop into serious damage that attracts borers or infections of the wood that cannot be treated. The larger the tree, the wider the mulch zone should be to also help reduce root competition with the grass, but in this case, a mulched zone at least 2 or 3 feet out from the trunk in all directions would be helpful. Keep the mulch layer only about 2 to 3 inches thick, flat (not mounded), and not piled against the bark itself.
Compared to some species of flowering trees, cherries tend to be somewhat short-lived, with 2 to 3 decades being a common "useful" lifespan before they decline too much aesthetically due to accumulating disease or pest damage. That said, they are capable of living a century or more, but in our region, we find that they usually struggle past that 20-30 year point unless they are growing is very ideal conditions and avoided any major injuries. (Cherries down in the D.C. Tidal Basin commonly decline and get replaced due to the soil compaction and/or saturation they have to tolerate.)
We can't see how your tree looks overall, but if the rest of the canopy looks similar to the foliage in the close-up, it doesn't look that bad and will probably live for many more years if problems with girdling roots and trunk base injury can be avoided.
Miri
