Last night I braved the torrential rain in Yorkshire to pop along to a
local nursery. This particular nursery is always worth a visit because
it has a "Buy for £1" section where they set aside the sorriest
looking plants and lets people take a risk, buy them for £1, and try
to revive them to glory.

Anyway, last night I found myself a new patient - an Amelanchier
lamarckii. Now it could be a bargain or just as easily be a waste of
£1, I'm not yet sure. It it about 1.5m tall with a single trunk about
2cm thick that bends all over the place up to about 1m high, where it
splits into about 5 branches that spread out in uneven directions.

Now here's my question... It seems (by browsing the web) that
amelanchiers will naturally tend to a multi-stemmed shrub rather than
the tree shape that it appears my specimen has been trained into. I'm
tempted to be brave, risk my £1, and cut the main stem at about 0.5m
from the ground. Is this a ridiculous idea?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.