Espaliering: A Small-Space Option for Growing Fruit
I would dearly love to grow my own peaches and Asian pears, and I do have room for trees. What I don’t have is the desire to manage those 15- to 30-foot tall and wide wonders.
So, this year, I’m going to try espaliering. It’s a horticultural technique used to train woody trees or shrubs to grow on a flat plane by pruning and tying select branches against a wall or fence. You’ve no doubt seen examples of it as a decorative device in formal gardens, and in the less formal, horizontal branching used in vineyards.
Although many believe the ancient Romans originated the technique, paintings of espaliered fig trees have been found in Egyptian tombs from about 1,400 BCE. By the Middle Ages in Europe, it was commonly used to grow fruit in walled gardens in monasteries.
For gardeners like me who’d like to have fruit within easy reach, and for people who have small-space gardens, espaliering is a technique worth trying. Espaliered fruiting plants offer a host of other benefits. Because the height and width of the plant is controlled in a flat plane, air circulation is increased, which helps to inhibit pests and diseases—and makes it easier to treat them if they appear. Typically constructed on a south-facing wall, espaliering also allows for a more intensive, even distribution of heat and sunlight. The latter might allow gardeners in colder regions or microclimates to grow some cultivars that wouldn’t normally survive or fruit.
The University of Wisconsin at Madison Extension cites even more advantages to growing fruit on an espaliered structure. “The intensive pruning directs energy away from vigorous vertical growth into the shorter, lateral fruit-bearing spurs, resulting in heavier yields than on ordinary trees. Because they are less susceptible to breaking branches, espaliered trees can have an incredible lifespan—some espaliered apple trees are still producing fruit after 150 years!” They add, “Some other advantages to espaliering fruit trees include being able to grow several different cultivars in the space of a single normal tree for greater diversity of fruit types and cross pollination requirements; the trees bear earlier and for a longer time with deeper fruit color…and harvest is much easier.”
The best candidates for espaliering are fruit trees and woody plants that have long, flexible branches. While the branches are still young and easy to manipulate, you position and tie them against the structure, then direct growth by pruning to buds facing the direction you want them to grow. Ongoing maintenance involves continued redirection and removing stray growth.
If you’re going for simplicity and you choose the right plant, the basic framework of your espalier can be accomplished in three to four years. A more complex design means a longer, more tedious process. If you’d like to give espaliering a try, there are loads of articles and books on the step-by-step practices, but here are a few quick resources to get you started:
- Blog, “Training a fruit tree into an espalier takes a good dash of dedication,” Oregon State University Extension Service, https://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/training-fruit-tree-espalier-takes-good-dash-dedication
- Blog, “Espalier Gardening,” UC Master Gardeners of Butte County, https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=24040
- Book, “Pruning and Training,” by the American Horticultural Society, https://ahsgardening.org/gardening-resources/gardening-publications/ahs-gardening-books/
Rachel Oppedahl is a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener of Tuolumne County.
