Bad Karma
It has always seemed that many things were just meant to be. Peanut butter and jelly, perhaps the greatest love affair of all time. Romeo and Juliet, Desdemona and Othello, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, Ozzie and Harriet, Mork and Mindy, Gertrude and Heathcliffe, Joe and Kirsten, Bonnie and Clyde – the list is endless! But humanity is cursed with its fatal flaws. Peanut butter and jelly – they don’t really mix and the jelly oozes out the side of the bread. Romeo and Juliet are tragic star-crossed lovers. Othello has a serious problem with jealousy. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth get past their pride issues, but eventually the book has to end. Ozzie and Harriet, as well as Mork and Mindy, get cancelled. Joe and Kirsten’s Days of Wine and Roses turns to Brandy Alexanders – not a good finish. And, a life of crime does not pay off for Bonnie and Clyde.
Plants, or combinations of some plants, can have similar tragic results. Some planting designs look great but eventually nature unleashes it’s fatal flaw. The design of some landscapes brings out the worst in some plant varieties. A number of these ill-fated arborial marriages exist but the coexistence of pears and junipers requires our attention.
The ubiquitous Callery Pears, strong and adaptive growers, are increasingly being bothered with Pear or Trellis Rust. To blame are junipers. And vice versa. Together they create a perfect storm scenario for the fungus, Gymnosporiangium fuscum. This is a dark, bare capsule on junipers which explodes with orange, jelly-like fingers during cold, wet springs. These galls cause dieback in junipers and rust colored spots and scabs on the leaves of pears as well as lesions on their branches. Proximate use of these plants is a marriage gone bad; under certain conditions they bring out their worst attributes.
Removal of affected plant material is part of the solution. Putting appropriate distances between host and parasite plants is another. Callery Pears are great trees for parking lots and streets where drier conditions prevent these fungal outbreaks. Systemic fungicide treatments are available. However, both groups of plants are fairly durable and recuperative. No matter how well they might look together their combination is just bad karma.
Plantings of Pears and Junipers are like the tit for tat relationship of Gertrude and Heathcliffe (if you’re not over 50 - look it up!). There is no real fatal flaw, but a lot of bumps and bruises along the way.
Please check out the linked article for more details.
