Pendula

Description

Pyrus salicifolia 'Pendula' — the Weeping Silver Pear — is one of the most graceful small trees money can buy, a true willow-leaved pear with long, narrow silver-grey leaves covered in a silky down that shimmer in the breeze. The overall effect is soft, arching and unmistakably elegant: stunning placed against a dark hedge or fence, luminous combined with white planting, and beautiful as a lone specimen over lawn or gravel. In spring the branches carry scented white blossom, followed by small inedible fruits, before the silver canopy falls for a tidy winter silhouette of pendulous branches. It is naturally small (around 3 m tall by 2 m wide at ten years), drought-tolerant once established, and an RHS Award of Garden Merit holder. Give it full sun and moist but well-drained soil, prune only to shape, and let this sensual, shimmering weeper become the talking point of the garden.