Rowan Tree Advice Please

[Ed.]

Morning all, First post here and I hope someone can help.

 

We have a small ~10-12ft tall Rowan Tree in our back garden, which started as a bare root dished out by the local council about 6 or 7 years ago.  Last year it suffered somewhat with aphids I think, which were being tended to by a large number of ants.  This caused the leaves in the affected areas to curl in on themselves.  I trimmed away the affected branches and all seemed well.

 

As the tree has blossomed this year it looks healthy up to about 5 or 6 feet, but then the main trunk (only a couple of inches thick) and all the branches above it appear to have died off, there were some buds, but they have never blossomed.  There are also a couple of small wounds/breaks visible in the bark.  I've read about fireblight and wondered if this is what we've got, or if it's something else?

 

Any suggestions as to what it might be and how I might save this tree please?

[openspaceman]

The main stem has died as a result of stress and a bacterial or viral infection, may well be fire blight but leaves in the background suggest some recovery from basal shoots, I think I would cut back the stem and look to these shoots to grow on. They could be stored back to one stem if they survive or left multi stemmed.

[Ed.]

Thanks Openspaceman, I thought it might have to be cut down to that point.

 

Here's another picture showing the whole tree:

 

You can see quite clearly just around the height of the fence where things go wrong.

[openspaceman]

In that case you could prune out the dead and hope.

[Ed.]

14 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

In that case you could prune out the dead and hope.

Thanks, will give it a go and see what happens!