Ornamental Pear Pyrus calleryana Red Spire

Red Spire is the heavy flowering callery pear. It opens earlier and more thickly than the other selections here, a solid white cover on bare wood well before the leaves push, then follows it with glossy dark green summer foliage and the red to purple autumn tones that give the tree its name. The crown is broadly pyramidal, more upright and better behaved than the old Bradford but never a strict column. It is planted along footpaths, in avenues and in screening rows where a narrow column would look too rigid against a building.

Cool nights for colour, and planting a row

Full sun, moderate water, moderate growth, and it tolerates clay, wind and street conditions. It grows through the southern states, from the Victorian goldfields and central New South Wales across to the Adelaide Hills and the cooler parts of Western Australia. Autumn colour is stronger and more reliable in cool districts, and in warm coastal gardens it arrives later and stays softer, so buy it for the shape and the blossom if you garden in the subtropics. Bare root stock lifts in winter and goes straight into the ground while dormant, which is a straightforward way to establish a row.

The failure mode is what happens to all that flower. Callery pear selections cross pollinate freely, so a Red Spire standing within bee range of a Capital, a Chanticleer or any other cultivar sets viable fruit, birds carry the seed away, and the seedlings have naturalised along creek lines, rail corridors and roadsides in parts of Victoria and New South Wales. The weight of early bloom on this one makes it the selection most likely to do it. Check the local weed listing before a rural or public planting, keep it away from gardens backing onto bushland or a watercourse, and pull volunteers while they are small, because a seedling callery pear reverts to thorny wild growth and is unpleasant to dig out once it has a taproot.

Red Spire against the narrow and the broad

Buy this one for the spring display. Capital is a strict column for a tight gap and reads as a vertical line, while Winter Glow is the one to take if autumn matters more, since it carries burgundy foliage well into the cold months. Red Spire flowers earlier and more thickly than either, and it keeps a pyramid you can walk under once the crown is lifted. Take it where the blossom is the point, where an avenue needs some presence, and where a columnar pear would look too stiff against a long low building.

Getting the structure right early

Prune in late winter, while the tree is leafless and the unions are visible. In the first three or four seasons choose one leader, keep the scaffold limbs spread up the trunk rather than whorled at a single point, and remove anything sitting in a sharp V union. Established trees want only deadwood and crossing branches taken out. Feed once in spring, mulch to the drip line, and water deeply through the first two summers. Bare root trees go in over winter and want a firm stake and steady moisture through that first year. See the full set under ornamental and fruiting pears.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 400mm up to Bare Root Regular, priced from $50.95 to $2329.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Every size here is established stock rather than a starter plant, so this line is intended for immediate effect rather than for growing on. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to choosing an ornamental pear.