No hope - mid August all the leaves have come off ...
 

I am new to gardening. I have NO clue, honestly ....

I planted two pear trees in winter and have kept them hydrated (Abatte and Comice). Two weeks ago the leaves started turning black.

Imageshack - img1817jl.jpg
a target='_blank' href='http://img33.imageshack.us/i/img1822kw.jpg/'img src='http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/7387/img1822kw.th.jpg' border='0'//a

Uploaded with a target='_blank' href='http://imageshack.us'ImageShack.us/a

Most of the leaves, about 80% fell off the trees and yesterday I went back to the garden centre to ask what should be done. The guy was very friendly and he told me :

- to cut all the leaves off and burn them
- the scratch the branches to see if they are green underneath.

He suggested it may be a fungal infection.

Do you think this is good advice? It seems at bit drastic to me.

What are the chances of the leaves returning next spring?
What should I do differently next year?

Thanks for ANY help. As I already mentioned - I am a beginner with all this.

A couple more pictures :

Imageshack - img1822kw.jpg

Imageshack - img1820v.jpg

Thanks

Sorry cannot see the pictures, but it sounds like a bad case of Pear Scab to me. The shop man was right. Remove any damaged leaves and burn or bin them. Do not put them on the compost heap. Then do the thumnail test. Scratch the bark on a branch, if the underneath is green then the branch is still alive. If all the branches are dead ie no green then go back to the G/C and ask for replacement trees. Otherwise soak the tree with a systemic fungicide, not sure what is available now as we do not use them. You do not really need to water again if there are no leaves, the tree will just get sodden roots which will do it no good.
It may regrow leaves now or it might just wait until spring, hard to know. Hope they do survive for you.