Pear at the house

[Turkish]

I have a detached garage and some landscaping between it and the house. There is a large pear in there that is about 12” dbh, and has made some pears the last 2 years. It is incredibly poorly formed and is in a bad spot. I’d really like to remove it.

It has an offspring farther away from the buildings that shot up to about 10 feet tall this year. I’d consider leaving it, as it’s in a manageable location.

I’m in south LA. I haven’t dealt with grafted fruit trees at all before — just planted lots of Chickasaw plums, crabapples, deer pears, etc at the farm. Am I right that the baby pear tree may not bear fruit? Should I graft a known variety to it? Any recommendations for varieties in the Deep South?

 

[cavey]

They wont grow true to seed from what I understand; and it will take a handful of years to fruit - may fruit, sounds like an opportunity to graft a variety you want onto the tree and just consider it root stock -- that way you will know for sure what your going to get. Im not a pear expert, just my thoughts. Im up north so I can help you pick.

 

[Telemark]

Why do you want to remove the big tree? Because it doesn't produce much? Or is it in the way of something?

 

[Turkish]

Why do you want to remove the big tree? Because it doesn't produce much? Or is it in the way of something?

It’s terribly ugly. It looks like a mass of branches all shooting straight up. Is there a way to fix that on a mature tree? I’m willing to try. I have a pole saw and ladders.

 

[Telemark]

I would assume it is salvageable. Can you post some photos?

 

[Turkish]

Don’t laugh. It was like this when I moved in, I swear.

 

[Telemark]

Interesting. It almost looks like it experienced some kind of trauma. Did some branches fall off recently?

If it produces edible fruit I would probably try to save it. But that tree's growth habit looks like it would be difficult to make it grow into a nice shape.

 

[Turkish]

Something happened. It’s hard to tell in the photo, the main stem in the center is actually dead.

 

[cavey]

Its too close to your house anyways... You could try and butcher it way back down to a new central leader ... if you cut it back to the stump it may sprout up again and you could stool out the shoots I think the ones that have popped up may be to old to do that now. Just another thought...

 

[Turkish]

Stool?

So I could get a graft off of this tree, but it needs to be young growth — is that right?

 

[cavey]

You could top work the tree, taking scion wood from another source or from a new growth branch on an upper portion of the tree that is "known" or at least had desirable fruit. Some of those younger root sprouts - you could pick one of those to graft to. Essentially starting over with a very established root system.

If you knew whether the tree was a grafted tree originally that would mean those shoots are the rootstock being different than the upper part of the tree so its likely you would want to graft a known variety to those shoots. If you could find a "healthy" branch to take scion off of some part of the tree you could also graft that to one of those shoots and start over. IF the tree was not grafted then those shoots are good to just pick one and let grow and try and prune the tree as it grows

this might not be the best vid but it will give you an idea if you want to graft to the tree. The tree branch limb or trunk portion does not have to be young wood but the scion does. So you could pick one of the new shoots to be the new tree and graft/top work it or use an older limb to cut back and bark graft onto....

Stooling is a way of making more trees - primarily root stock , by cutting back the trunk to the ground level the tree then sends up new shoots - thats what that tree did (injured or sick or stressed) or its a variety that suckers easily -- anyways with the young shoots you pile in dirt or wet sawdust around the them above the ground level to let them root out into - in time you cut flush back to the ground level taking the new shoots with roots to use as trees or root stock. This method assumes you will be removing the tree. I just saw how heavily it shooted so I just mentioned that as a option.

There are a bunch of options

 

[Turkish]

I gotcha. Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of trying to graft to one of the suckers, since there’s already an established root system. Only downside is the proximity to structures.