Hi tumbleweed908 Willis Orchard does provide fairly detailed planting and after care instructions on their web site.

My first question is did you follow them?

Choosing the right location and soil preparation are essential in the survival of any tree. Add Immediate planting and after care as being essential for the survival of any bear root tree and especially so for large ones.

What are the soil conditions you are planting in?
Does it drain well and if so how did you test it?
What did you do to prepare the soil for planting?
Does the area puddle when it rains?

Bare root trees lose nearly all of their fine feeder roots in the bare rooting process. It is important to water every other day in order to produce new feeder roots and to keep them from drying out. If soil conditions do lot allow for this then it is all the more important to amend the soil as written in the instructions provided by Willis Orchard so that you can.

Also the pear trees you ordered are flowering pears and as such produce no fruit. Are you aware of this?

Here is a link that might be useful: Willis Orchard General Planting and Care Instructions

Hi thisisme, thanx for the response.

I tried to follow the directions as closely as possible. I have even had a few conversations with a lady from that company, Cynthia was her name I think.

The trees were cared for just as stated on their website in regard to their arrival. I wasn't able to plant them right away, so they were unboxed, and placed in upright with the roots still wraped as they were shipped in my garage.

My soil in this area is quite sandy so I didn't feel the need to add additional sand to the mix. The water does not puddle when it does rain. If I fill up the area around the tree (fill the baracaded area built while planting) it is all drained within 15 min.

Regular waterings are not conducted in this manner. I let my water hose trickle into the area around the trees. I have let my water hose trickle for up to an hour this past weekend and the soil seems to drain so fast the baracaded area never fills up.

The hole that each tree was placed in was quite large. They were dug approx 2.5 - 3 feet wide, and several inches deeper than the root required. I then sorta loosely put dirt in the bottom of the hole that formed a cone shape. Then placed the roots down into this cone of loose dirt. I had a piece of pvc pipe that I used to measure across the top of the hole to verify that the depth was not below or above where the previous dirt line was on the trunk. I finished filling the hole and lightly tamped down with my foot.

The folks at Willis instructed me last year that I was possibly over watering my trees, so this time around I tapered off the watering from every day to every 5-6 days this time. You thinking that I tapered off the watering too much? Would it be benificial to re-plant these trees using the Mycorrhizal Fungi? I did not use this a two to three weeks ago when I planted the trees.

tumbleweed908 I have spoken to Cynthia before. She has always been helpful. I thought you were supposed to put that microbial stuff under the roots at the time of planting.

All that stuff does is put beneficial fungus into the soil. It helps with aeration and drainage and helps decompose dead plant material making the nutrients more available to the root system. All of which is good but not as good as going down to your local Home Depot and buying a bag of composted manure and composting your trees.

I have always watered every other day for the first two weeks. After that I switch to every 5-6 days but I grow in 25 gallon tree pots. After the first year you should be able to cut back to the point where you would only water every 7-10 days.

If the trees are still alive there is no reason to believe they will not continue to be. You did not say but I would assume they were planted where they get full sun during the day.

In the future when bare root trees arrive always be sure to inspect the roots. Any broken or badly damaged roots should be cut back to where the root is damaged. Also look for signs of RKN.

Tumbleweed,

I'm not at all familiar with West TX climate, but will make a general observation. I've lost several trees due to water issues and they always took one of two paths. Either they would seem to grow just fine during the spring and then collapse when we got some sunny hot days, or they would never leaf out. It took multiple trees planted in the same spots for me to figure this out.

I would encourage you not to water by schedule. Instead dig down with your hand a few inches. If the dirt still has some moisture don't water. You can check this by grabbing some soil a few inches down, and form a clump with it (using your hand). If it retains it's shape, there's enough moisture (Obviously, if the soil is too sandy, it won't clump regardless of how wet it is.)

Roots are more damaged from over-watering than under-watering, so err on the side of less water.

Also there's no reason to soak roots for 5 hrs. which may be contributing to your problem.

Pears, when they're older are very tolerant of wet soils, but when they're young, they'll die if the soil's too wet.

LOL. The Fruit & Orchard forum is hardly the place to ask about a callery pear(Cleveland & Bradford are two selections from this species), unless you're planning to use it as a good fireblight-resistant rootstock for a good fruiting variety - but you'll probably be treated better here than if you'd posted this query on the Trees forum, where you'd have been crucified for planting yet another member of that now-ubiquitous invasive species.
Callery pears are, in many folks' opinion, a large weed - and it's hard to kill them. Overwatering could do it, but you'd have to have pretty poor drainage to accomplish that. Have a little patience, and I'll bet your tree will be just fine.