AUBURN, May 10---Despite their standing as one of the most popular landscape trees in the Southeast, Bradford pears aren’t what they’re cracked up to be.

For despite all the beauty they lend to thousands of landscapes throughout the region, the trees are plagued with one fatal flaw: due to their combination of vigorous growth, weak wood and poor branch structure, they often begin falling apart after only 20 years.

Experts say homeowners and others would be far better off buying other trees – trees that lend beauty to the landscape and last longer.

Mary Beth Musgrove, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System horticulturist, says homeowners can choose from a variety of alternatives that lend both beauty and hardiness to the landscape.

"Chinese Elms are an excellent choice, although consumers should be careful not to confuse these with Siberian Elms, which are often passed off as a poor substitute for Chinese Elms," Musgrove says.

To ensure you’re buying the right elm, Musgrove says consumers should look for "small, reddish-brown, pointed leaf buds and beautiful cinnamon patches of bark."

Siberian Elms, by contrast, have round, black leaf buds.

In addition to being long-lived, Chinese Elms, are resistant to Dutch elm disease and do not have the pest and dieback problems associated with Siberian Elms.

Other fast-growing alternatives include the Chinese Pistache and Japanese Zelkova.

Crab apples and Japanese cherries are also good alternative flowering ornamental trees, although homeowners should remember fruit can cause branch stress on some cultivars.

Red maples also are a good choice.

In the meantime, Musgrove offers advice for homeowners who insist on sticking with Bradford pears.

First, mulch around the trees and fertilize no more than you would the rest of the landscape.

If you insist on buying Bradford pear trees, you can minimize the risk of your trees eventually collapsing by picking trees with a strong single leader and eliminating branches that intersect with the trunk at sharp angles.

Nevertheless, she believes homeowners would be much better off choosing another tree.

Bradford pear trees first gained a toehold in the American horticultural scene in the 1950s, when researchers with the Agriculture Research Service in Glenn Dale, Maryland, noticed an especially promising tree grown from seed collected in China more than a half-century earlier.

"It took another couple of decades for the tree to gain in popularity in the Southeast," Musgrove says, "but by then plantings could be detected all over the place -- on home landscapes, along roads and in highway medians."

While many homeowner associations and local municipalities have quit planting the trees after learning of their weaknesses, Bradford pear trees remain a hot seller.

Last February, however, Bradford pears trees were removed from the parking lot of the U.S. National Arboretum after being displayed for decades – a telltale sign of the trees declining popularity among horticultural experts.