Spring Trimming of Espalier Trees

One of my ongoing delights in our garden are our two espalier trees. Caring for them, and seeing their amazing fruiting capacity (that little tree bore about 20 apples on the top pair of branches last year!), has given me a lot of satisfaction.

Once I had the trees properly lined up with the posts, and strung my wire supports (see Moving the Espalier Apple and Asian Pear Trees from February 2006), the maintenance has been pretty simple. A few times a year, the vertical shoots need to be removed, so the tree will direct its energy into the fruit production and growth at the ends of the branches (which will be tied down to the horizontal wires).

This week was the first trim of the season. The trees have flowered and started to set fruit, so no longer a chance of trimming off a fruiting spur, so I chopped quite liberally. Here is the espalier asian pear (with 3 varieties of asian pear, one on each pair of grafted branches), before the trimming:


... and after:


Here's a look at the developing fruit. I'll wait a couple of weeks for it to self-thin, and then thin it to one fruit per spur / clump.


It is interesting that this year, there seems to be more fruit on the lower branches. Last year (first year for fruit), most of the fruit was on the top level, and very little on the lower branches. Perhaps the top ones outdid themselves last year, and are resting. It will be interesting what pattern develops over the years.