Capital pear

[SueBee]

I have a Capital Pear that has been planted too close to the driveway and a Liquidamber that will stay there, it needs to be moved.....it is about 4 metres high ( 3/4 years old). Can I cut it back to maybe about a 30-40 cm trunk and move it in mid-winter? Should I begin digging around it now to loosen roots and will it have a long tap root that will be able to be cut without killing it?

[SueBee]

As most would know this is a straight as a die trunk, so I am thinking to cut it low and then encourage branching at the cut...the trunk is around 10/12cm diameter at moment. Into a training pot for a broom style eventually....thoughts anyone?

[dansai]

I don’t have any experience with pears, but I would say if you chopped it that hard there would be a good chance you’ll end up with it suckering from the rootstock and the scion would die back.

[treeman]

Just be aware that it will be a grafted tree so don't cut below the union if you want the original variety. Also pears have notoriously difficult roots. They are not very fibrous close to the trunk so you may need to dig a long way from the trunk to get any functional roots and then cut them back progressively or you may risk losing the tree.

[shibui]

Ditto on the graft and roots.
There are very few trees that actually have a 'tap' root as most people imagine it. They almost always have a number of main roots that head in different directions, most growing horizontal under the surface to access nutrients and surface water with others growing more vertical to access deeper water and nutrients and to provide deeper anchorage. You only need to examine trees that have been blown over in a storm to see that most of the roots are relatively shallow. that does not mean they are easy to dig. There will be plenty of strong roots going down a metre which is deeper than most of us want to go when digging a tree.

Even if you can transplant the tree, the strongly upright habit will probably cause difficulty when trying to train a bonsai from the regrowth. I've tried several upright varieties (not pears) and been frustrated. A couple I grafted to different varieties, the others I threw out.