Well-trained fruit
Sounds tricky? Not at all – training fruit trees, especially into cordons or espaliers, is a great way of saving space and not nearly so difficult as you might think.
Cordon apples and pears are grown on a single unbranched stem against a wall or fence. Buy a pre-trained tree and plant it at an angle of around 45%, secured to a bamboo stake – several trees set 3 ft/90cm apart look especially effective, and you can mix and match varieties that cross-pollinate.
Prune each in late summer, first cutting back any new shoots from the main stem to 3 in/7.5cm. Then turn your attention to the shoots that were pruned last year-they will have formed smaller side shoots, which should be pruned back to 1 in/2.5cm. And that’s it! You’ve just trained a fruit tree.
Espaliers are a kind of living fence, with three or more matching pairs of branches trained horizontally from the main stem. Again, start with a pre-trained tree, tie it into wires, and prune it in the same way as cordons. Espaliers can be grown against walls or fences or be installed as a fruitful divider between one part of the garden and another.
Once you get the bug for trained trees, you might want to try other forms, like fans, pyramids, and even low-growing mini-fences. If you do, seek guidance from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden handbook: Growing Fruits.
Credit : Aussie
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