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.).

You put your panel in service mode, then unplug the swg, then with a giant adjustable wrench you unscrew it from each side. Once out, you use a solution of 1 part acid/2 parts water and let it soak for about a half hour. I have a special little stand that I set it on to do the procedure, but it was $40. I'm sure there must be a less expensive way, but our scale gets so bad that we need to let it soak for about 90 minutes so it was worth it for us. After that, you need to neutralize the acid before disposing of it. After putting the swg back in place, make sure you bleed the air out of the system. It's pretty simple once you've done it a few times. We were very intimidated at first.

Melissa, all apple trees from nurseries today are grafted to a root stock. It is the root stock that determines the size of the tree. An espalier tree is just the way the tree is trained to grow and not a type of tree. In your 4' x 25' area, with the right root stock, you could get as many as 6 apple trees planted 4' apart. We have semi-dwarf trees planted 4' apart in our tree rows (we have 17,000 trees in our orchard). In our retail nursery, we stock all dwarf and semi-dwarf trees and tell our customers what root stock they are getting. Most nurseries do not do that so you have no idea what size tree you might end up with. The most common dwarf root stock is Bud 9 or B9 and semi-dwarf is M26 or M9. If you contact Whiffletree Farm & Nursery, they can help you with the right trees for your situation. I know they grow a super-dwarf tree on M27 root stock that gets no taller than 6'-7'. Whiffletree is north of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. Her is one of our tree rows planted to espalier on M26 root stock spaced 3' apart. We also have a 3,000 tree apple tree maze planted to espalier! Hope this helps!

thank you so much, i knew they were out there! please spread the word, she deserves a national announcement In so many ways regarding overcoming adversity and dealing with cancer, she should be held up as a national hero, not to mention her dedication to pbs and the sewing community, I am hoping this gets somewhere through social media. you can even copy my words and not give me credit. It must be so sad for those closest to her for nothing to come of her death. Happy holidays!