Pomegranates (Punica) are really multi-stemmed, suckering shrubs that are sometimes trained as single leader tree forms. As a suckering shrub, they should take to coppicing (essentially what has happened to your 'tree') relatively well, although when intentional, this practice is usually conducted at a much younger age :-) A 70 y.o. specimen may not respond in a similar manner.....it could very well be that the plant has reached its life expectancy and you might benefit from replacement.

I'd wait to see how it responds with new spring growth. If it survives such harsh treatment this late in its life, you should see the production of more suckers from the roots, followed by foliage and flowers. I wouldn't encourage it to produce fruit right away - allow it to recover for a couple of seasons before letting any fruit develop.

yeh.. but what do you do about the neighbor until spring???

ken

The stump may not re-grow, but the suckers will be fine (and a whole forest of new ones will probably sprout up too). The only problem is, you'll have to wait 70 years for them to look good and venerable again.

Resin

Thank you all. Yes, it must have been trained into a tree at some point, it had a huge single trunk. So now I guess we wait til spring and see what happens. There are already quite a few suckers he didn't get, and they all look fine, so hopefully...... As for the neighbor, they were out of town when this took place. At least they have some pom jelly to remember it by :)

Thanks again, everyone, for the advice.

Probably there was a main section that had died or was well on the way, with live sprouts arranged around it. So, as is so often the case, despite the desires of involved parties it was not an either/or situation. Part of the shrub was dead/shot and part was not.

True Bboy. It definitely needed a trimming, but we just got the most beautiful huge poms off it in October, and it was obvious not all of it was dry. We think it was just easier for him to tear it all down than to actually think about what he was doing. Ah well. He'll be mangling someone else's trees now.