If you have limited space, want to have manageable fruit trees or want to try something cool in the garden, try espalier.
Espalier is the art of growing fruit trees — usually apples or pears — by training the branches to grow horizontally along cordons, much like those used in growing grapes.
The benefits, besides creating a living fence, are having the fruit within easy picking reach and being able to grow fruit trees in narrow spaces.
Contra Costa Master Gardener Helen Erickson, who manages the fruit orchard at Our Garden in Walnut Creek, offers tips on getting started and being successful:
- Decide where you want to plant your tree. Typical choices are against a wall, fence, trellis or pergola. You also can install free-standing posts.
- The first tier should be about 16 inches from the ground, and each new support wire tier should be 16 inches from the lower one. The total width of the tiers measures about 7 feet with the tree in the center.
- Choose an area with well-draining soil that gets full sun — at least six hours of light a day.
- Late winter and early spring are the recommended times to plant any fruit tree, but in California with its comparatively mild winters and summers, it’s not as important, meaning we can plant almost any time. It might be easier to start the process, however, if you wait until the tree is dormant in the winter.
- Almost any fruit or citrus tree can be espaliered, but some are better suited. Apples, for example, are considered the easiest because their branches are more forgiving when the limbs are bent toward support wires. Dwarf or semi-dwarf trees are best for small spaces.
- To plant, first cut off the top of the tree, an inch or two above the first support wire and right above a bud. You’ll need to make sure at least three buds are below the cut. Doing this will force the tree to send out branches at or near the height of the wire.
- After the tree has produced new shoots, pick the three sturdiest and prune off the rest. When the shoots are 3 to 4 inches long, gently bend and tie them to the wire — one to the left, one to the right and one that will grow straight up. Your tree should look like a lower case t.
- Snip off the top of the center branch, not letting it grow more than 6 inches above the wire until the first tier of branches has grown almost to the end of their wire. Then let the center branch grow up to the next tier, choose two branches to train on the support, and repeat. You’ll eventually have a tree with limbs growing horizontally on each of your support wires.
- As the branches grow, continue to tie them to their support wires and prune away any extraneous shoots.