I have a four year old Monterrey Pear tree. It is growing but has never had blooms. Why doesn't tree bloom?

If you use a high nitrogen fertizer on your lawn to get a nice green color the nitrogen could be causing a lot of green tree growth but preventing bloom I think a fertilizer higher in phosphorus like those tree spikes you just pound in the ground in a ring around your tree could help. Or just skip putting the turfbuilder around your tree. This would be in an area about as large as the above ground parts of the tree

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Originally Posted by wildandblue

If you use a high nitrogen fertizer on your lawn to get a nice green color the nitrogen could be causing a lot of green tree growth but preventing bloom I think a fertilizer higher in phosphorus like those tree spikes you just pound in the ground in a ring around your tree could help. Or just skip putting the turfbuilder around your tree. This would be in an area about as large as the above ground parts of the tree

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Thank you for answering. The pear tree is in my rock garden and not close to grass. I did pound a tree spike down next to it in the early spring.

Doesn't there have to be a male and female tree in the area to produce blooms/fruit?

No, it will bloom whether there is 1 tree or more. A pear I think just needs to be pollinated by bees to produce fruit. Pears and apples are very similar you can graft apples onto pear rootstock to get dwarf apple trees and they can cross pollinate. Sometimes winter temps that are too cold, the tree will survive but the buds that would have produced flowers are killed.

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Originally Posted by bushg

Doesn't there have to be a male and female tree in the area to produce blooms/fruit?

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There are other Pear trees in other yards not far from mine. Maybe they are not close enough to make a difference. How does one tell the difference between a male and female pear tree? Do two pear trees need to be planted fairly close to one another and be male and female in order to produce blooms? Thank you for your response.

A pear tree's flowers are perfect, meaning each flower has both male and female parts. Having more than 1 tree aids in pollination, say the wind is blowing kind of hard, so the bees will only work on one side of the tree during the short time that the flowers are in bloom? With two trees that side of the tree would be the opposite side of the next tree so the bees can work downwind.