Chanticleer Flowering Pear Winter Marcescence - December 2019

Last week, I shared a couple of photos of our stand of Frans Fontaine Fastigiate Hornbeams and talked about how they were retaining their leaves to provide some Winter screening.  They're not the only trees in the yard that has foliar marcescence occurring.  Above you see one of our three Chanticleer Flowering Pear trees that has almost all of its leaves still on the branches.  This tree grew a ton this year - based on the tree inventory post - but I'm not sure if this foliar retention took place last year, but I do remember that one of our old flowering pear trees in Elmhurst held on to most of the leaves through Winter because I wrapped lights around it and had to contend with the leaves obscuring the lights shining through. 

I planted this tree early in our time here in Downers Grove, but, unfortunately, I don't have a post showing it going in the ground.  It has grown quite a bit and I placed it strategically based on a neighbor a few doors down having a light on their garage.  Over the year(s), this has grown up and out - yet retained it's mostly columnar shape - and has almost grown to the point where it is, indeed, blocking that light. 

This foliar marcescence - of retaining of these leaves during the Fall and Winter - are a nice natural evolutionary device that we're using to our favor.