advise espalier vs standard

15 years ago

I have a space 10 feet wide by 70 feet long, which I want to plant an almond, peach, apricot and 2 asian pear trees. Would there be enough room for standard planting of dwarf trees or would I be better off trying to espalier??

What varieties would you recommend for northern Idaho...zone 6a....(sandpoint area) winter temps can, but rarely dip to 0 F. Usually springs are wet and cool, with summer temps in 80's to high 90's. Falls tend to be dry with frost arriving late Sept to mid Oct.

Thanks for any insights and thoughts.

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Comments (3)

myk1
15 years ago
Standards should be roughly 25' tall and wide.
Semi-Dwarfs roughly 15' tall and wide.
Dwarfs roughly 10' tall and wide.

You can count on them over growing (I've seen more trees grow larger than suggested than trees that grow smaller).

You should be able to keep a tree pruned to it's suggested size without it being a constant battle. Keeping larger trees pruned to small size seems like too much work to me.

If you want the easy route I would go with dwarfs and let them grow normally.

If you want a little extra work but not as much as trying to espalier a large tree (I've tried espaliering a semi-dwarf into a 5 scaffold candelabra and once it becomes a ladder job it becomes work), you can start its training off as an espalier and then let it grow wild. That will give you a footprint that is oblong instead of round.
Otherwise I would go with dwarfs for espalier also. You could get 4 scaffolds out of most dwarfs and that would be plenty tall to work on.

As far as I know only the pears are good candidates for espalier from your list.

I have no varieties to suggest, none of those are my thing.
flora2b
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks Myk1.
I like your idea of starting with espalier and then let go wild, so I have a framework. I have a red haven peach espalier, which has given me fruit 2 years running....but I must confess that I really don't know how to prune it and I suspect that soon it will be just ornamental. That was my initial intention, with fruit as an added bonus, as I know that you need renewal wood to get fruit.
Another thought, can I just plant two different dwarf varities in the same hole and let them grow up naturally together to maximize space, variety and pollination?
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myk1
15 years ago
So far that semi-dwarf semi-espalier is working great.
It's about 5' from the property line/fence and right next to my archery shooting range.
Now that it is full grown branches barely extend over the property line and into my arrow lane but not bad at all.
I keep all the branches from coming out of the central leader and let the side branches come out of the espaliered scaffolds. That seems to keep it from extending the full 8' or so it should from those sides.

For an espalier new wood tree I think you have a choice of letting the new wood come out of your scaffolds and prune it all the way back to the scaffolds when you decide it gets out of bounds (naturally your boundry outwards and probably between scaffolds will need to be larger than on an old wood spur bearing tree) while you are also letting new wood branches come out to replace them.
Or
You can prune your scaffolds back to the leader and let them replace. That way kills the design advantage of having an old espalier with large scaffolds.

I've never had lasting luck with new wood trees (plum in my case) because borers killed the trees young and curculio made it not worth trying again. I had the plan but not much experience.
A friend has some plum trees and doesn't have borer problems so I may get some experience soon.

Yes I've heard of multiple trees in one hole. I've never tried it but have had the idea of doing that and twisting the trunks together.

When enough leaves have fallen off my trees to show their structure I'll be posting a picture of them.

advise espalier vs standard

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myk1

flora2b
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advise espalier vs standard

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myk1

flora2bOriginal Author

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flora2b
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