campv: Stark's have a dwarf 'Hardy Giant' Asian pear dwarf supreme that they list as disease resistant. They say their other varieties of Asian pears are not disease resistant. Do you remember the name of the Asian pear that you have there? The pics of the 'Hardy Giant' show quite large pears but I'd expect them to be smaller here for us. fruitnut: I wonder if Stark's 'Hardy Giant'is similar to your Korean Giant or Olympic? I'd prefer firm/crunchy as opposed to juicy also!

I'm no expert...still a novice, but I have a couple Asian Pears that are 3 or 4 years old. The biggest thing I've had to do was train the branches to grow some direction other than straight up. You can do this by tying them down, or using a branch spreader, or a clothes pin. It looks like the lower branches on the right side are off to a good start. I'd say keep all the branches as low as possible without them causing you troubles, like the lawnmower, the dog, the kid, etc.

Yes, it doesn't look right- but I suspect the tree has decided to discard that branch as not being high enough on the branch hierarchy. I don't know if that makes sense, but I see lower branches on my plum similarly "failing to thrive", and I like to imagine that in this case the tree has assessed the combination of need, light and nutrition and is allocating resources to the front runners. Please don't ask me how the tree does that or why I believe it might be true. I have no idea. Just thoughts and all FWIW! :-)M

Anne, Hi. I don't remember at this time how many leaves until I check again. I did look at the leaf again this morning and the area around these spots is yellow. I'm not gonna worry cause I think this is just one bush. Carla