I would never delay planting because of the existence of any weed in a small planting- I've never encountered one that formidable although knapweed is not in our roster here in southern NY. A 4" layer of wood chips can work wonders for most weeds and glysphoshate with a wick stick can supplement if necessary. For you purposes you would be better served with Betufolia IMO. Cally could work too, although a test winter might test it. Fowler nursery can probably supply you with what you need if they aren't sold out yet. You could also purchase the rootstock only and graft to the varieties you want. Pear grafts easily and scions grow very rapidly. I've never believed in using size reducing rootstock for Asian pears even where drought resistance is not needed because the species can easily be maintained as a very small tree on any rootstock simply by aggressive pruning once the trees come into bearing.

Peachy, Stump grinding can be pretty expensive. Keep all the suckers cut back as soon as they sprout and the stump will starve to death in a season and quit throwing suckers. Or if you can cut the sump low enough, just mow over it when you mow the grass and it will die quick enough. If you are not opposed to chemicals, you could spray the foliage with glyphosate (Round Up). One treatment of may do it, but it may send up a few more suckers after the initial treatment and a second treatment may be required. I've not had luck burning stumps out that are still green, unless you pile a lot of wood on them. You could pull it out as Murky suggests, but it will only work if it's pretty small. It's hard to cut all the roots if it's big and stumps are misleadingly tough to pull out if they are very big. It's a little off topic, but the other day I saw a commercial for a 4X4 truck (I think it was Chevy) and they pulled out a huge (about 2' dia.) stump. I thought, what a joke. I have quite a bit of experience in my lifetime trying to pull stumps out (using tractors and other equipment). If you've got the time, I'll share a couple stories: Once I tried to pull a stump out with a large 2 ton hay truck. I had a very big chain (almost the size of a railroad chain). The tree was only about 8" in diameter and I cut all the roots I could get to with a chainsaw. I thought the thing would come out with no problem. It was not a very big tree, it should have moved, so I thought I'd give it a little jerk. It still wouldn't come out so I got more and more aggressive. Finally I backed up about 10-15 feet to get a good run at it. I hit the end of that chain and the truck came to a shockingly abrupt stop. I bent the hitch of the truck and it flung the battery out of its compartment. I ended up digging a lot deeper and cutting more roots, before I got it out. Last year I tried to push out a stump with a road grader. It was about a 2' dia. stump. It was a large motor grader weighing 32,000 lbs. It had enough power to pull all but the very largest 4-wheel drive tractors backwards. Using the blade, I couldn't push the stump out even ramming it. I had to end up digging down and cutting more roots with the blade, more or less digging the stump out. There's no way a 4X4 pickup could pull a large stump out, as the advertisement suggested, even if they cut the roots. To get that to work on film, they had to dig the stump out and re-bury it in loose soil beforehand. This post was edited by olpea on Fri, Feb 22, 13 at 10:16

HI rovabay welcome to your new obsession. Santa Rosa is an excellent choice as a self pollinator. That was my first producing tree and there was no other plum anywhere near. Fruit was not large, and also few in quantity, but that's what happens without cross pollination. Now that she has a mate I have to thin out 90% of the baby plums or I get cherry sized fruit. One caution. I read somewhere that 3 diff strains had been released all with the Santa Rosa name. I've seen pics of other folks plums that look more red than mine. Mine are a very dark skin, very tart, but flesh is yellow and juicy. I can't vouch for other Santa Rosas ability to self pollinate. I love Asian Pears, and many folks are saying most are partly self fertile. I planted 4 diff kinds my first year so I can't agree or disagree with that. In all honesty I'd go Semi Dwarf on all trees and see if you can fit 2 into each spot. Lots easier to care for and more production that way. Pruning a combo tree takes a learning curve, and usually one variety takes over anyway. So if you hadn't planned for other pollination you'd be in trouble down the road anyway. My vote on Asian Pears is Raja if you can get it. I also love Hosui, but that tree takes a lot of work. Most folks love Olympic Giant, but just put mine in so can't comment on taste yet. It would however extend your picking season, plus OG is a great storage pear. I do have 20th century but haven't been wowed by it yet. However it's young, and they say some trees need to grow up before tasting their best. Pam in cinti

I know of a nursery in Putnam County with A. pears with two varieties on them but I'm not allowed to promote my business on this forum.