Here's a photo

We need to know what zone are you in, to be able to help you.

The tree looks like is about 6 feet tall, is it?

Do you want it that tall?

If you do then befor you cut it down do a shower or a scratch test.

Spray the whole trunk you should be able to see what is a live and what is dead or using knife start scratching bark, if it's not dead you should see green cambium.

From looking at picture the trunk doesn't look dead, it might need more time.

I'm in zone 8 (mojave desert). It's only about 4' at most so I think I'd like it to get taller.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give that a try.

pic is very far away .. and frankly.. the only life i see left is what id coming from the roots... snip that off.. and you might not have anything left ..

ken

you also need a 3 foot ring of mulch around any tree at transplant .. it helps keep the soil moist under and around the plant while it grows roots ... to succeed ...

ken

I agree that the top part is probably dead. Ours in the Mojave desert are fully leaved out so if your top was going to sprout it would have already. They grow fast so you can either let it be bushy which would be best for the plant or try to retrain another central leader from what you have growing.

Yes, get some wood mulch an inch or two thick, 3ft. dia. around the base. Keep the mulch a couple of inches from the trunk.

I can't believe anything would survive or grow with a hot dessert sun beating down on the bare ground around the tree area.

Mulch will also help conserve water by keeping the soil under the mulch moist for longer periods of time.

It looks as though the only part alive is the very bottom. Should I trim everything off all the way down to the bottom just above where it is alive?

Thanks for the tips and suggestions. I'm new to the desert and new to gardening so I'm still learning a lot.

It appears there still some green where apparently you did a scratch test on the lower trunk? And it looks like a new bud starting just above the scratch.

It would be best if the tree sprouted somewhere along the trunk. The higher on the trunk the better. That way you would end up some trunk to go with the new growth.

So give it a chance to do that first.

Anything coming from the ground will be the same tree but it will be all new growth and if nothing happens higher up, then that will be your tree.

So I would wait and not cut anything off yet. That new part is alive and will be making food for the roots until something else sprouts, if it does.

If another sprout comes from further up, then wait until that growth progresses well, then after that, you can trim off the lower growth.

So just wait for a while and see what happens.

Even if it is dead, cutting the top off will not help the tree. It'll just be aesthetic. So you don’t have anything to lose by waiting.

Don’t cut top yet nothing to lose by waiting