The cut pear

**Don Boekelheide d*@yahoo.com**

Hi, Sally,

Oh boy, something else to distract me from finishing
the next Community Greening Review... (a lot of work,
but it's coming along well - just made a major move
ahead on the cover...)

Passe-Crassane pear? There's a cool site for pear
lovers, www.lapoire.com, where you can read a
description and see a pic-
http://www.lapoire.com/scripts/2/2a.htm#. It dates, as
Judy says, from the 1840s, a pear-quince cross. There
are sources from a nurseries in France (and they are
passionate about their pears - the mayor of Reins once
told Charles X,  "Nous vous offrons ce que nous avons
de meilleur : nos vins, nos poires et nos curs" ('We
offer you our best - our wine, our pears and our
hearts', something like that). 

> he is requesting
> to be compensated $500. 

Your gardener isn't French, is s/he?

I agree with Dorene - if this just happened, get some
scionwood. Is the rootstock still in place? What was
the calliper of the tree?

Since the variety is well known in commerce as a
winter pear, my guess is that it won't be too hard to
locate a replacement (the web has listings in France
and England, also Southmeadow in the US, but they
haven't got a great reputation for reliability...).
And I'd try NAFEX, North American Fruit Explorers, a
great outfit for folks into fruit growing.

Since pears can take a long time before they begin
bearing, this gardener understandably is pretty upset.
Was it bearing?

Anyway, looks like 3 separable issues: 

Saving this variety (for the gardener, mostly - I
don't think it is necessarily a rare, one-of-a-kind
rare variety, unless there is a family story connected
with it). Hopefully, you can find the wood and graft
some new starts, and or buy him/her a new one.

Making restitution and tending the gardener -
absolutely, many apologies are in order, plus
providing a new tree, plus being kind to the gardener
in other ways. It hurts when something like this
happens. I think the $500 may be to symbolize how
ticked off s/he is, as much as anything. Legally
"responsible' or not, I think we need to show the same
compassion we'd hope for in a similar situation. $500
for a tree? Trees are worth that and more - but if you
don't got $500...

Fruit tree rules - In Hilton Head, SC's, big community
garden at Sea Pines, fruit trees are handled
separately from garden plots. There's a shared
'orchard', managed by gardeners who want to grow fruit
trees. It is separate from the other garden plots to
avoid shading problems, spraying conflicts (some fruit
varieties can demand spraying, organic or non-) and
trump the issue of what to do when newcomers take
plots or people change. I think some version of this
makes most sense. Also, as you in Philly are good at,
fruit trees can make nice street trees if they are
properly selected, tended and harvested. 

We plan to use a similar approach in Charlotte, but
our gardens aren't far enough along to have fruit
trees yet.

Don B, Charlotte NC

> Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 21:22:41 -0500
> From: "Sally McCabe" <SMcCabe@Pennhort.org>
> To: <community_garden@mallorn.com>
> Subject: [cg] garden dispute
> 
> I'm in need of some advice.
> 
> One of our gardens recently installed a new fence
> after housing construction
> next door did in the old one.  During the
> installment of the fence, one of a
> gardener's fruit trees trees got cut down. 

 <snip>

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