Silver Creek Nursery Ltd.

Summercrisp Pear

History: Summercrisp pears were developed by the University of Minnesota in an effort to create a cold hardy pear. They were successful in creating a hardy and delicious pear, releasing the variety in 1985. Its name is derived from the fact it ripens in summer (very early for a pear!) and that it is great right off the tree when still crisp.

Why We Grow It: Summercrisp performs amazingly in our test orchard, producing lots of freckled beauties that ripen uniformly and hang well on the tree. This early cold-hardy pear has a really sweet, pleasant flavour and is not gritty or dry. The fruit are average-sized with yellow skin and red blush. For optimal eating they should be picked before fully ripe and stored in the fridge until eating. This variety deserves to be more widely planted.

Fruit Specs

Recommended Use: Fresh eating

Fruit Size: Small

Storage: Keeps less than a month when stored in cool, humid conditions

Harvest: August - Mid

Perry Class:

Growing Specs

Canadian Hardiness Zone: 3

Soil Preference: Sandy loam, loam, clay loam. Prefers average to moist conditions with well-drained soils, avoid planting anywhere that floods for more than two weeks in the spring.

Flowering Time: Middle

Bloom Colour: White

Pollination Requirements: Requires a pollinator of a different pear variety (European or Asian) that blooms around the same time

Sun/Shade Requirements:

Full sun (approx. 8-10 hours of sun daily)

General Growth Habits:

Hardy with a conical growth pattern, has reliable crops. Very resistant to mildew and fireblight.

Shipping vs. Pick Up

CLICK HERE to see how shipping compares to pick up.

Shipping: Every year we ship thousands of trees across Canada (except BC due to CFIA regulations). We carefully bag roots in damp sawdust, then box them and send them out via courrier. CLICK HERE to see our shipping policy.

Pick-up: We also have thousands of trees picked up from our nursery each year. The pick-up options is free, though you must wait until you have been emailed a confirmation that your order is ready to pick up, which will have further information such as hours, locations, etc. We really appreciate if you can make an appointment to pick up, then we can be as organized as possible during our busy season.

Size at Purchase

Our grafted fruit trees are graded into three categories, and the size includes the rootstock:

50-80cm whip: may have some minor branching, this grade is like a "b-grade" size tree in industry standards; we include in this price category trees that are over 1m but have some scarring or mild crookedness.
1m+ whip: may have some minor branching, aka feathering. This is like a typical one-year whip in industry standards.
1m+ branched: these trees must be over a meter and have 3 or more branches 30cm or longer, as well as a central leader. They are essentially a two-year tree in industry standards.
For stone fruits only - 1m+ whip/branched: We have combined these grades based on the way these trees grow and are grafted. Plums, apricots, cherries, and peaches naturally tend to grow more vigorously compared to apples and are more likely to form larger trees with more branches. However, we only chip bud them so they are a one-year old tree by industry standards. Apples and pears are partially bench grafted, and using the knip-boom method the grading becomes more complicated, hence the reason they are split into different grades.

grafted tree grades at silver creek nursery

Please keep in mind, bareroot trees appear small if you are unfamiliar with them. Size can vary year to year due to weather conditions and every single variety has a unique amount of vigor (some varieties naturally are smaller and some bigger, much like humans -and when you propagate hundreds of varieties, there certainly is variation). While we remain competitive in our plant size, it's also worth noting we don't use synthetic chemicals to push vegetative growth, therefore you may find conventional nursery stock larger in some instances comparatively.

Why plant small? It's best to transplant a tree when it's young so it can establish its roots before it has a lot of vegetative growth. This is much less stressful on it and bareroot trees tend to catch up and even surpass larger potted trees planted at the same time, after a few years.

Orders that are cancelled last minute due to size (being "to small"), will still incur the applicable cancellation fees if the trees are true to our grading standards as per the agreement of sale when the order was placed.

Rootstock Provence Quince Dwarf Bareroot OHxF 97 Full Size Bareroot

Size 1m+ whip 1m+ branched 50-80cm whip

Quantity