Pruning Espalier Trees

First in what will likely be a series of videos on how we maintain structure of our espalier fruit trees while also, hopefully, pruning for vigorous flowering and thus fruiting.

As you’ll see, this is very much an art form. John has been training espalier since about 2004, so for about 20 years. This is his third garden where he’s started trees; we had some honeycrisps off our first tree in our first home, moved before our second trees produced, and have lived with these trees the longest. It’s been a joy to watch them mature under his careful tending.

I mention the time because he will tell you that a lot of what he does is intuition. Even when he thinks some buds look like fruiting spurs (more rounded buds rather than pointy), it doesn’t always turn out that way. And, conversely, some buds that look vegetative (pointy) decide to surprise us and they flower. So what is shared here is really an authentic capture of how much he takes off, and for you to see the before and after of these trees.

It’s possible when you watch this you’ll be shocked at how much he cuts back. Sort of like how much space I give our annual vegetables and flowers in the garden.

You really need to cut back the suckers every year (sometimes in vigorous trees you’ll cut back a second time in early July). And for the fruiting spurs, which are about 3-5” long side branches off the main cordons (the horizontal leaders), he maintains them annually by cutting them back to various lengths – sometimes letting them grow longer and other times cutting back to include several years’ growth.

The other thing he is simultaneously doing is thinking in 3 dimensions and pruning for shape. It’s great to have these fruiting spurs angling out in multiple directions. This gives the fruit the space it needs to thrive. I tried to capture these angles as best I could in this video.

More videos to come in a few more weeks — I’ll likely update this post and add more videos here when he starts pruning more trees.

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