I had a Callery pear growing behind my fence. I wanted to move it into the yard because it was a nice looking tree and I was trying to clear out the area. There wasn't much space to dig around this 12ft tree and was unable to get a good rootball. So I ended up with a bare root tree but seemed to still have a lot of them. I planted it anyway about a month ago and it went down hill fast! Most of the leaves wilted and turned brown. I figured for sure it was dying. Then the leaves that were still green stopped turning brown. So it seemed. Now it seems to be just dying at a really slow pace. Yet there are still partialy green leaves. So far there is no sign of recovery. Is there a possibility that this tree still might make it?
Sounds dead - a real blessing in disguise. Best remove it, and replant with something else better. Callery Pear is not a good garden tree, short-lived, very prone to shed large branches, and invasive producing abundant nuisance thorny seedlings. Oh, and the flowers stink of a mix of vomit and rotten fish.
