Thanks for the advice flora. Its not too late for me to reconsider. One of the reasons I'm hesitant to use wires fixed to eye bolts is because I'm nervous abuot drilling and anchoring to the bricks in the chimney. I'm worried about permanently damaging the chimney and was looking for the least risky means of attaching to it without damage. I'm willing to be convinced that my fears are ungrounded. How does one securely anchor eyebolts to brick? I have no experience with such things. I was also concerned that in order to make steel wires taut it would put considerable stress on the anchorage of the bolts. If anybody can link to pictures of the process of securing eye bolts to brick I would greatly appreciate it. As far as rotting of the cedar goes, I guess I'd figured that it wouldn't do much harm if the bottom portion of the trellis began to rot after a couple of years. Shouldn't the tree be pretty well anchored itself by then? Its not like gradual rotting of the bottom portion of the trellis would cause the whole thing to disintegrate, and it would still have some anchorage points to the chimney. Making the trellis doesn't seem difficult. Securing it to the chimney, and the prospect of it making it more difficult to care for the tree are the things I'm more concerned about. Any thoughts?

Hoping to keep this thread alive... I've done my first re-tying and pruning of the spring shoots on my Belgian fence espalier. Question: What length do you keep your fruiting spurs? I trimmed to about 3 inches last year and this year I'm pinching new growth to about 3-4 leaves. In the one guide I found that mentioned a length, it recommended 5 inch spurs, which seems like it would be too thick for my spacing (2 feet between trees, should be about 16-2/3" sides on my diamonds). I did lose one tree over the winter--my Stayman's Winesap. Luckily, a local farm store had some semi-dwarf Stayman in stock. The replacement was about 6 feet tall and on who-knows-what rootstock. I pulled the original tree and potted the M7 rootstock, which was surprisingly small, and toyed with the idea of attempting a graft from the 4 feet I lopped off of the new tree. I didn't get around to it, but it was in full bloom and I doubt i'd have gotten it to take on the 4 inches of M7 I had left. The new tree had nice roots and I fretted over lopping off all that greenery after it had just spent so much energy blooming, but it is finally pushing some nice strong leaves a couple weeks later. (sorry it's sideways) I also need to remedy a pear that has been trained slightly too vertical. It was pushing buds on the top half of the branches, but the lower halves were bare. Just with a little re-tying to the wire frame, it has started pushing a few leaf buds. I'll be trying some spreaders on it soon to push it a little further. It's just left of the central tree in front of the thick part of the asparagus behind the row. A few holes here and there, but I may get a few fruits this year and I think it will be taking shape nicely by this fall. Anyone else with espalier updates? I'd also really appreciate tips on how you handle pruning your spurs (length, thinning fruit, renovating spurs, etc.).

Check with your state's Department of Agriculture / Extension Agency. Many of them have a web presence. Most states have a number of brochures and thorough articles discussing what will grow well in your area, how to plant, and how to cultivate fruit trees. Those will be better than any sort of generic advice given in a book that's designed to appeal to a nationwide audience. You should also consider buying a gardening book by a local author that specifically discusses your area. The advice and tips are usually dead on and less generic. For example, again, "Extreme Gardening in Arizona" or Brookbank's "Desert Gardening" is more useful to me, in Phoenix, than Sunset's "Guide to Western Gardening" which is very California-centric or Otto's "The Backyard Orchardist: A Complete Guide to Growing Fruit Trees"

Thank you for your responses - they are very helpful! This is where I've read about training in the second year: http://www.palmers.co.nz/index.cfm?componentID=334. I have no clue how reliable that information is - perhaps it is true for some geographical locations? I am glad I did the right thing training them now. I did get scratched - in fact I undressed to sunbathe while training roses. 30 mins later, when I saw blood, I got fully dressed and gloved ;-) These are my first roses ever so I want to make my mistakes with them rather than with the more expensive antique roses, which I also admire and will one day buy. There are not too many cane hardy to zone 5 but some are so I just have to do some more reading and first-hand rose growing. Regarding my worries about the leaves, I am double cautious around roses now because 2 years ago, while feeling brave, I pruned my mother's roses in what seemed to me a regular spring fashion, i.e. down to less than 1' - and it turned out they were climbers and shouldn't have been touched.. They have not recovered by today - the few new canes are perhaps only half as thick as the original ones I had cut off. So now I try to read and ask before I do anything. BTW, is there hope for those hard pruned climbers? Will they ever grow as strong as they initially did, or should we replace them with new ones? Diane - thank you for the links to GW posts - it didn't occur to me to do a search using any other word than "espalier" so I only found one result :-) I am not cutting anything off these roses in the foreseable future.