Espalier

Pronounced es-PAL-yay. It’s[sic] French. Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king.

Took a class in March at the New York Botanical Garden on Espaliered Fruit trees. Espalier is the S&M method of forcing plants to grow in one plane in a form that you choose. The class was taught by Wayne Cahilly, he spoke about selection of the right tree, selection of the right area in which it would be planted and he covered all the technical aspects involved in training the tree. One area we did not cover in class was the construction of the supports, but this was covered in the handout and in additional documents provided on a CD.

Since it takes awhile for the plant to reach the desired form, he suggested to have a written plan and then stick with it, unless something bad happens like a branch breaks or buds don’t form where you wanted them to.

The reason for growing the plant in one plane is for economy of space and getting a head start on the growing season or to prolong the growing season. Another reason would be for the esthetics.

A large portion of the class covered basic pruning and Wayne explained how the plant hormones work. Cytokinin is a bud growth stimulant generated at the root tip and sent up the stems. The Terminal bud generates a growth retardant called auxin and sends that back down, this is what causes the other buds on the branch/stem to chill out, but when the auxin is received at the root it is decoded as a root growth stimulator, which then sends more cytokinin up to the terminal buds. Oversimplified, but easily seen how removing a terminal bud will cause other buds to break. All this depends on season and plant, etc.

The main espalier forms are

1. single cordon, one main trunk trained vertically.
2. horizontal cordon, branches trained along a horizontal structure, may be one or more tiers.
3. vertical cordon, one main trunk that splits and is trained horizontally with branches trained up vertical supports after a specific horizontal growth. Horizontal distance depends upon how many vertical branches there will be.
4. palmette verrier – a twist on the vertical cordon, main trunk remains growing in the vertical.
5. fan – shaped like a hand held manual fan.
6. informal – do anything you want as long as there is only 1 plane.
7. Belgium fence, multiple plants planted and interwoven, intersecting at 90 degree angles. The intersections may or may not be grafted together.

The main points of the class were, have a written plan and follow it.

Some examples of horizontal cordon espaliered fruit trees at the New York Botanical Gardens.This is an example of purchasing the plant and trying to adjust it to the structure you want to grow it against. The horizontal branching off the main trunk are not even close to the horizontal fence supports.    Yikes, here is an example of how not to plant a shrub. This photo was NOT taken at the New York Botanical Garden. I wonder how I will be blamed for this?

Here are 2 pear tree at the Cloisters in Manhattan, they are located on the lower level outside the Medieval Art collection. They both are trained up against the walls of the Gothic Chapel in the palmette verrier form.I plan on training a Chinese witch hazel, I had thought of having it against the garage, but not sure about how difficult it will be to paint behind the plant. Here is the plant, I put it in a pot to see if it starts to grow and how many branches it might have. Initially I was going to do a vertical cordon around the window of the garage, but I think I will wait and see what the plant wants to be. I purchased it from Michigan bulb and it came bare root. I am looking forward to the blooms and scents in February when nothing much else is alive. I also stuck some miscellaneous tree shoots  from the yard into a flower box last year and I think I will try to make espaliered bonsai trees. I think 2 maples and a beech?