The Art of Using Espaliers

Whether the side of your garage faces the street or side yard, it's usually a solid expanse of… nothing, right?

It doesn't have to be. You can turn that unutilized blank billboard into something special: a painterly canvas for the lines of an espaliere fruit tree.

The side of my garage faces the street, and is stucco. "Let's use it," said landscape designer Joseph Cornetta. He advised me to look into espalier fruit trees, one of his favorite treatments for small spaces, walled areas and garage walls. With an espalier, you use less space than with a traditional tree.

Espalier fruit trees

An espalier is a tree that's pruned and trained to a beautiful, flat pattern, focusing on height and width—not depth-- making it a seemingly two-dimensional architectural element.

An espalier design can be found for a variety of fruit trees, including fig, apple, peaches and plums.

While the word is French, it's derived from the Italian spalla, meaning shoulder—providing a wall or wire frame to shoulder the growing tree.

Though espalier trees are often credited to being developed by the French centuries ago, they were also found in ancient Rome and Greece to grow grapes.

The espalier was a favorite in 18^th-century formal gardens in England and France, as seen in gardens at Versailles. Today, we continue to find espaliers in orchards and vineyards—and in gardens grand and modest, such as mine in suburbia.

Their "flat" quality also makes the tree ideal for narrow and small spaces.

Splendor in repetition

You can form a tree into an espalier yourself over time, which can take several years--often five or more, depending on the design you're going for. (One site to get started with is Essortment.com.)

I chose to purchase espaliers that were already formed, and ready to be planted.

At Nabel's Nurseries I found pear trees in the height and width that was in proportion to my garage. I was advised by Cornetta to purchase three instead of one. "There's strength in repetition," he said.

He's right.  Mine are in a "palmette verrier" shape—a classic  candelabra design named after Louis Verrier, a nineteen-century French agriculturalist.

I installed them in 2002. Now, they're fuller and thicker. In spring, they grow beautiful white flowers.

Orchard wall

My garage is now an orchard wall for three low-maintenance pear trees. The trick is to prune them in late winter, with light pruning through the summer, to maintain their design.

I enjoy their artful shape, the shadows they create against the wall, and the few inches of depth they require.

Most of all, we love our harvest. We've eaten nine pears that the squirrels didn't beat us to. This last one is going to be lovingly plucked and divided tonight for dessert.

Katherine Ann Samon is the author of four books, including Dates From Hell and Ranch House Style. Her column, "Home & Garden," about providing you a beautiful life at home, appears twice a month on Larchmont-Mamaroneck Patch. To learn more, visit Samon's Web site.