Hi everyone,
I’m planning to start a small home orchard/garden with fruit trees around my house in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts (zone 5b/6a, with sandy loam soil). As I’ve been reading around, I’ve become increasingly intrigued by the idea of using espalier. Some of the things that appeal to me about espalier:
(1) It could help us make the most of our somewhat limited space and sun.
(2) It could make it easier for me to take care of our trees. (I want to keep things as minimally toxic as possible, and I understand that espalier, done well, can help to reduce disease pressure.)
3) From what I’ve seen, I like the way it looks.
4) No less significantly, my wife likes the way it looks. An important point, as I’m sure many of you can appreciate!
Specifically, I’m thinking about attempting either a Belgian fence or en arcure style of espalier along the south-facing side of our porch, which gets pretty much all-day sun. The porch is about 24 feet long, and the espalier would ideally be about six feet high (the height of our porch railing). Depending on the specifics of the design, I’ve been thinking that the project would involve somewhere between five and eleven trees.
My questions today are about the best rootstock(s) for such a project, or maybe more accurately, about the tradeoffs involved in choosing one rootstock over another. Following the suggestions of @alan, @mamuang, @figgrower and others in response to my first post here, I’ve been researching rootstocks, and specifically rootstocks for espalier, and I’ve gotten to the point where I wanted to check in and see what insights you all might have to offer. (Apologies in advance for the length of this post, by the way – I’m partly just sorting things out in my own head, and I appreciate your comments even if you don’t have time to read what follows! @MES111, @fruitnut, @applenut, @tomIL, I’ve learned a lot from your comments on previous espalier threads, and hope you may chime in here. )
I know I’m just scratching the surface, but from what I’ve seen, there seems to be a bit of a divide on the question of rootstocks for espalier. In general, most of the things I’ve read seem to recommend using dwarf rootstocks. (This seems to be especially true of the more basic how-to guides.) According to an article on espalier from frenchgardening.com, however: “As espaliered trees are subjected to intense pruning and ‘braking’ of growth with training, in general, rootstocks permitting vigorous growth should be used.” Getting a little more specific, the author recommends M 7 or MM 106 for larger espaliers using relatively less vigorous varieties (while suggesting something more in the M9 range for more vigorous types). Going even further, orangepippintrees.com indicates that rootstocks as vigorous as MM 111 and Bud. 118 might be appropriate for larger espaliers (though it does suggest dwarf rootstocks for smaller espaliers).
Of course, the difference here depends partly on whether we are talking about smaller espaliers or larger ones. But there does seem to be an underlying difference in emphasis as well: in choosing a rootstock for espalier, should we be more concerned about limited the vigor of the tree, to avoid “fighting against” the desired form of the espalier, or about ensuring that the tree has sufficient vigor to respond well to intensive training and pruning?
While frenchgardening.com and orangepippintrees.com seemed to be in the minority, I was inclined to give their recommendations a good deal of weight, both because they seemed to know what they were talking about and because what they were saying seemed to fit, at least in principle, with what I’ve seen Alan and others say here about the value and effect of training techniques such as bending and spreading branches. (Though that was mostly with regard to free-standing trees, I think.)
At the same time, I’m concerned about the danger of motivated thinking on my part. Simply put, if I could use MM111, it would make it easier to find a source for some of the varieties that I’m interested in growing (relatively disease-resistant antiques that would be well-adapted to our region, and especially old New England varieties). Of course, I recognize that this has nothing to do with the question of whether using MM111 in an espalier of the scale I’m proposing is a good idea! That being said, it sounds like MM111 does offer some significant advantages from a growing perspective, at least when dealing with a free-standing tree.
But what about espalier? Orangepippintrees.com does say MM 111 is appropriate for a large espalier, but how large is large? Here are my back-of-the-envelope calculations so far. According to Burford’s Apples of North America, MM 111 produces a tree 12-18 feet high. (Interestingly, to me at least, the low end is the same as M 7, which Burford puts at 12-14, and less than MM 106, which he puts at 14-18. So is there much of a functional difference between these options, in terms of height control?) I’ve seen people claim that trees on MM 111 can be kept at eight feet with diligent summer pruning, which proper espalier management would certainly involve. If that’s true, then I would think that an espalier (which adds rigorous training and potentially significant root competition to the mix) could be kept even lower. Like, maybe about six feet, just to pick a number totally at random…
What do you all think, and if you’ve worked with espaliers, what does your experience suggest? I would be particularly interested to know what people think about the potential effects of different espalier systems (for example, the horizontal cordon, which typically seems to have a single vertical running up through the however-many tiers, vs. the Y-form of the Belgian fence, which has no vertical above the “foot”, but never gets much below 45 degrees, either, vs. the en arcure, which seems to have almost no vertical and quite a lot at or even below horizontal).
Of course, if you think that anything I’m kicking around here is just a really, really bad idea, feel free to say that, too – and perhaps, to suggest alternatives?
Many thanks,
Jamie
