pear tree problem

hello all

i would be very grateful if someone could tell me what is going on with my patio pear tree. i have had the tree for around three years. it has reached about 5ft 6", but only seems to produce flowers/fruit, on the bottom half of the tree, although the half that does not flower, still produces leaf growth. it has done this two years in a row now.

sound like you need a bigger pot, it might be pot bound

Are you pruning it properly?  You need to reduce each year's new growth by about a third when it is dormant in the winter.  This promotes sideshoots (spurs) on the branches which is where fruiting buds will later appear on most varieties.  Have a look at the RHS advice on fruit tree pruning:

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=90

The other thing is to make sure you feed it with a feed suitable for fruit trees.  General feeds will have too much Nitrogen and promote leafy growth at the expense of fruiting wood.