Orchard People

Introduction
Welcome everybody. I'm Susan Poizner, and this is the Orchard People radio show and podcast. I wanted to start the show today with a little bit of a story. years ago, I visited Vancouver, BC, and I visited this beautiful community orchard. It was called the Strathcona Community Orchard. So it was a volunteer day and there were people of all sorts of ages and they were working with the fruit trees.
Now. This was the first time that I visited a community orchard or any orchard that had espalier plantings. So espalier is an absolutely beautiful way to grow fruit trees two dimensionally up against fences.
Each tree was maybe three feet apart. So they were planted on an angle and each tree was a different variety and I looked and I thought my gosh, this is an incredible way to grow fruit trees in small spaces. Instead of having your backyard with one big huge apple tree with one type of fruit that ripens all at the same time you could In a small space have 10 different types of apple trees with 10 different types of apples or whatever fruit you want to grow and they can ripen at different times.
It just seemed like there were endless possibilities. So in today's show, I invited a special guest.
Meet Andy Apples Lewis
I wanted to invite Andy Apples Lewis. Yes, his middle name is Apples, at least so I hear on the internet. So Andy is the lead grower at the Newt in Somerset in the United Kingdom, and he's going to tell us a lot about the Newt, which is this luxurious country resort or estate.
It's in England. There's a hotel, there's a spa, and there's incredible gardens with a lot of espalier fruit tree plantings. Thanks. So, Andy Apples Lewis, welcome to the show today. Hi, Susan. Lovely to, see you again. Nice to see you.
Exploring The Newt's Gardens
And so tell me a little bit about the Newt. The Newt is a country estate that's been reimagined.
We've, we've spent a lot of time planting a lot of apple trees, a lot of trees in general, but we have a very large collection of fruit and especially our dessert fruit apples. There is some sort of maze on the property with espalier apple trees. The garden is a very old garden and it's gone through many different stages of its life.
And when it came to our current owners, one of the main areas was the walled garden. That basically fallen into a disrepair and the old garden had been lost. So it was essentially a blank canvas for our lead garden architect, Patrice Taravella, to redesign and reimagine a whole different design for the walled garden.
so what it has within there is our collection of, of dessert apple trees. And it's just over, 680 individual trees that we've planted in there amongst other plantings, like the hedges and the under planting. Now you say that there are 680 apple trees in this beautiful space, how far apart would they be?
How large would each apple tree be in the maze? So it varies slightly depending on the different form or spalia that we've created.
Espalier Techniques and Benefits
But essentially most trees are around 30 to 40 centimeters apart. So it is a very tight spacing and that's part of the whole espalier art and trickery is to, to really maintain the tree and prune it to the best we can to really make the most of that space, like in your initial pictures.
From some of the pictures I've seen of, of the property on the newt, there's lots of different designs. Like, for instance, is this a fan shaped espalier? Can you describe this and tell me what we're looking at? Yeah, absolutely. So this particular image that we're looking at is actually one from the south wall.
So the outside of the wall has different types of fruit rather than the apples planted. And the one we're currently looking at is actually a quince tree, not always known as a tree that can be trained and worked in this way, but it is a, it's a quince tree and it's been fan trained. sometimes if you have a particular tree of variety, that's a little more vigorous, it's going to come bigger.
It's easier to do a fan train because you've got a few more limbs and a larger space to fill up compared to your standard asphalt training that you do with an apple or a pear essentially. It's on the south wall, so it's going to get a large amount of sunshine out, which helps with the blossom and then the ripening of the fruit.
And it looks like there is a red brick wall right behind this tree. So could anybody just literally, grow a fruit tree attached to their own house? Or do you need some space between the tree and the wall for the tree's little branches to go backwards? What are the limitations? So the idea of growing a fruit tree against the wall is that essentially if it is a brick wall it's going to warm up in the sunshine so it's going to warm the bricks which then help them to not only ripen the buds but the fruits also gives it protection in the winter if it is a south facing wall that wall's going to warm up on a winter's day with a little bit of warmth which then holds off the frost a little.
If you are going to plant Up against the wall, it's always best to keep it off slightly, just to allow airflow. Airflow is, you know, incredibly important, whether it's an espalier tree or your freestanding tree, you're always looking to increase airflow and light levels just to make sure you keep away any of those nasty bugs or fungus or anything like that.
Yeah, that is a big issue. A lot of episodes of this show, we talk about how important air circulation is when you're growing fruit trees, and at least with these espalier trees, you're getting air circulation. They're flat against the wall, like a fruiting wall, but I guess the air circulation comes from the front, but there is no circulation coming from the back if it's grown up against a brick wall of some sort or some wall.
So do you find that these trees get more diseases, or?
Challenges and Solutions in Espalier
Because you're pruning them and you're restricting the growth and you're allowing airflow behind or around them, I'd say generally.
Because it's a more tended to tree, you're going to fall into less problems. Okay, so you did touch upon an issue that these trees, while they're gorgeous, there is a lot of fussing with them. and we are going to go into more detail about pruning. I certainly have some big questions about pruning.
But, for instance, in this tree, or these trees, I guess. What are we looking at here? There's a trees in crisscross shapes. What, what is this exactly? Sure. So this is the picture taken from, one of the corners of the inside corner of the parabola. this particular form that we're looking at is known as Belgian fence.
Belgian fence is a crisscross form. It's quite a classic style for using for, for filling a space or if you need to create a screen, because once the, the, The tree is, you know, semi mature and mature. You're going to have foliage that fills, but then you're going to get your fruits as well. So it's the crisscross trellis type, and that particular collection of trees we're looking at there is, is, they've come from the county of Norfolk.
So our trained apple trees are all planted in county of origin from the United Kingdom predominantly, but we do have some French varieties as well. When you have fruit tree branches, apple tree branches, or cherry tree branches that are rubbing up against each other, my concern is that it would cause wounds in one branch or another and, you know, make an opening for disease problems.
Sure. Or even test problems. Yes. Is that a concern for you guys? Well, it, you know, that's where sort of a spier and train trees kind of bend the rules or break the rules slightly. Because I know when you look at your, your standard pruning of the free Ds and, and the C with the crossing, we would still consider of course our three Ds with, with damage and disease and those kind of things.
But the, the one big rulebreaker is that we allow branches to cross the, the Belgium fence. You know, you have to have your, your branches crossing it. Is, is part of it. But because our trees are so well tied in, they're not getting the movement. The big risk of a branch crossing is actually because they would then rub and then they make a wound.
But because our branches are tied in so securely and tightly, you're not going to get that rubbing effect. What you do eventually get, or can get with a Belgian fence, is when the branches do crisscross, As they mature and get older and because they are essentially tied close together, they will naturally graft together.
But what that does, okay, it can present a risk of if one tree was diseased, it would, it would, you know, potentially cross to the other tree, but it's fairly unlikely that's going to happen. But what you are going to get is good strength in the trees. They essentially make their own bond together and eventually a Belgian fence could become freestanding in that way.
What production can you expect from espalier trees? Oh yeah, sure. So obviously it depends on the size of the tree and the situation you're in, but as a general rule, we would expect to get around 10 to 20 apples per linear meter. So if an apple tree is growing with just one leader, 10 to 20 apples are for that.
and you can kind of calculate how many apples you'd get. thin our fruit as they are sort of eating apples rather than cider apples. We're, we know we're, we're looking for best fruit and best size fruit. So when we do our June prune, we're going to thin out the fruit at the same time. So we generally have more fruit than we would require.
And it's actually picking the best from them.
Harvesting and Sharing the Bounty
I wonder with such a beautiful estate, you probably have lots of people come to visit. Are they allowed if they come in the fall, are they allowed to pick an apple and eat it off the espalier trees? We do encourage people to pick them. it's a little bit tricky in terms of not everybody knows when an apple tree is ripe. So when we're around in the garden, we can sort of do our best to educate people. you know, it. coincides with school holidays. So when we do thin our apple trees, the ones that we know children can reach, we don't thin quite so heavily because the, the little hands do quite a bit of thinning for us. That is so clever. We have, I grow my fruit trees in a public space in our local park, and we get beautiful harvests with our cherry trees.
The cherry trees are huge. You have to climb up them. You know what, in the early years, people would come and just take everything, right? Like, one family would come and take everything. The apple trees, because the apples take a while to ripen, by the time it's time for us to enjoy the apples, they are all gone.
But then we don't have 600 apple trees. We've got, I don't know, five or four or whatever. So, do you, at the end of the season, do you have much of a harvest that you give to the restaurants on site or in share with, I don't know if you have volunteers, but what do you do with the harvest? So we, we, we generally have more than enough apples.
some of our trees are planted very close to the pathways, which are obviously going to be. picked first. generally, if there's enough foliage on a tree, it does help to hide some apples. So that's a, that's part of it. But many of the apple trees are actually, have a bed in front of them planted with herbs and things like that.
And generally it sort of, discourages people to walk across the beds to pick the apples. So by the end of the season, I'd say we, we We still have plenty of apples, because we have so many different varieties. I mentioned, it's just over 680 individual apple trees, but what that translates into is around 330 different varieties or cultivars.
So what we get with that is a very staggered, ripening period from early, mid to late. so we have plenty of apples. we generally each morning, once the apples are opening, we'll, we'll collect windfalls cause they do. Drop overnight. we often put them into baskets for people to enjoy because we want our Our visitors to come and enjoy the apples when we have a particular glut of a certain variety or a lot of apples, becoming coming available we will Take them over to the shop.
We have a farm shop on site, but also to our restaurants as well. So our main restaurant, the botanical rooms, they do a breakfast buffet every morning and it's, you know, one of the great joys is that we'll take down six or seven different varieties of apple, put them in a stack of eight or so apples, present them the best we can, but also with the variety name, most of the varieties or a lot of the varieties we grow, people haven't come across before because it's not your standard shop bought, varieties.
so it's just trying to sort of bring different varieties to people and if we can display it with the county of origin, if someone is visiting the hotel from a specific county, they might find an apple that was grown from their county or potentially it's the kind of thing that their grandparents maybe used to grow in their gardens.
Wow, fantastic. That is so exciting. I hope one day to come and visit and see and I love tasting apples of different varieties, so I suppose these English apples are things, you know, are varieties and cultivars that I would really never get access to here in Canada because, or in the States, you know, people don't grow that stuff, I guess.
Who knows? Maybe it even wouldn't thrive here. Yeah, I had a quick look sort of at our sort of lineage to see where we lie in comparison to Canada. So, you know, obviously, weather and provenance is always going to sort of determine how well certain varieties grow. you know, but, but. It is one of the great joys of each year trying different varieties.
And, and what we, we found is one year we'll go, Oh, this is our favorite variety or favorite five different varieties. And actually you look forward all the next year to try it again. And I, I really think that it's weather dependent because you'll go back to that variety. And think, oh, that's not quite how I remembered it.
And I think, you know, year on year, whether it's the maturity of the tree or if it is the weather and the climatic conditions that happen really determine the, you know, the flavor and the taste notes, of apples. So it really is one of the great joys for us as a garden team and as gardeners to, to trial different fruits, but then to present it to our visitors and go, yeah, try this one.
This one's just become ripe. It's delicious. and when we run our workshops, it's a really. Good opportunity to present different varieties to people, the growth habits as well as the tasting notes. I absolutely love that because I agree a hundred percent. You know, I have like my favorite apple I try it once and it is out of this world.
And then the next year it's like, yeah, that's okay. It's not really that exciting and it could be the soil, who knows what it is. Now we, I, you and I are going to talk specifically about espalier pruning. So how you create those shapes, but not only how you create the shapes. But how you encourage rooting because what I find with young, for instance, apple trees, you can shape them however you want.
If you're tying them against a fence and trellis, you can tie down branches. You can cut off branches. It's easy, but making sure that these Trees actually produce fruit is the tricky part.
Spotlight on Fruit Trees: Oasis Apple
So we're going to talk about that in a minute But I we're introducing on this show a new feature and it's called the featured the spotlight on fruit trees So spotlight on fruit trees each month I'm going to have a guest who will talk about a fruit cultivar that they that's one of their favorites to grow.
And the guests may be people who have specialist fruit tree nurseries or people who are influencers or academics in the fruit tree world. So Andy, are you ready to hear about the first cultivar that we're going to talk about? Thank you. This is a very special show. The very first one. Okay. You're ready.
All right, let's go. Let's learn about this first apple and it's called Oasis. it's the Oasis apple tree and Veronique Alexander of Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery in Quebec is going to tell us about it. So let's, let's learn about that now.
My name is Veronique and I'm from the Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery. We are located in Rowden, Quebec, in our north of Montreal, and we specialize in hardy fruit trees. That are easy to grow for homeowners all over Canada. So your favorite apple is called Oyasay, and that means new apple in the Mohawk language.
Can you tell me a little bit about how this apple was discovered and what's special about it? So this apple was created in Quebec by a collective non profit that's called La Paume de Demain, which means The Apple of Tomorrow. And it's a new one. It's patented to help the group continue to create new varieties.
And it's a very sweet, very tasty, very juicy apple. And what we like about it too is that it keeps very long in bad conditions. Tell me a little bit about the very first time you actually tasted this apple. What was memorable about that experience? So we went to meet Roland Joannin, who's the Breeder who created this apple and we told him if we're going to offer your apple, we first need to taste it.
It was March 2024 and he gave us this like apple that was looking all old, the skin was dry, it was really not appealing, but when we bite in it, it was like super crisp, super juicy, super flavorful. And the reason it was not looking good was just because it was kept in his basement until that time. So that's just to give an idea of how it can keep long and how it's good even if the appearance may be in home keeping condition or not.
How can people learn more about your nursery? What's the website you would like to share? Our website is heartyfruittrees. ca And there you will find all of the varieties we have and all explanation on how to order. Orders are made online and we shape April and me around Canada.
You're listening to Orchard People, a radio show and podcast brought to you by the Fruit Tree Care training website, orchard people.com. And I'm Susan Poiser, author of the Fruit Tree Care books Growing Urban Orchards Grow Fruit Trees Fast and Fruit Tree Grafting for Everyone. And actually coming up next month, I will be introducing my new book.
Which is about fruit tree pruning. So you guys are going to hear about that next month. But in the meantime, I have with me Andy Lewis, Andy Apples Lewis, who is the lead grower at the Newt in Somerset in the United Kingdom.
Starting Your Own Espalier
And we've been talking about espalier pruning. So in the first part of the show, we talked a little bit about the forms, what it can look like.
but the, the thing with these espalier trees, and I've grown them myself, is you can shape the trees, you can put up your trellis, you can tie them lovingly, tie down the branches into the shape you want. But why is the problem sometimes getting fruit out of these trees? What's the problem here, Andy?
Those first three, four, five years, depending on variety, you are going to be pruning, you are going to be training, and you're not necessarily going to get blossom and fruit immediately. Even in those first two years, if you did get Blossom and Fruit, actually the best practice is to remove those young fruits because what you want to do is focus on putting the energy into the tree, make sure it's got an established root system and a framework.
So I'd say a big thing is, is, is patience and the tree should do the work for you. But when it comes to the pruning and the work you do with it, it is really studying each particular lateral, which then becomes the spur and working out how and why and where you're going to prune it. And before you make a cut, maybe either explain to yourself or someone else.
Why are you going to cut it in that particular way and what you're trying to achieve. And after you've made those cuts, it's, it's, you'll then see year on year what's happened since you've pruned it. One of the issues is that a lot of new growers don't understand the difference between vegetative buds and fruiting buds.
So, and that the fact is that those fruiting buds that they, they happen only when the tree is mature enough, they look different and it's very easy to cut them off. So let's look at these diagrams here. We're going to talk about espalier pruning, but the first thing you need to do is plant your tree. Now, you can buy ready made espalier fruit trees from the garden center, and we can talk about that, but Would you say the best way to do it is to start with a young fruit tree, like a one year old little whip?
I certainly would. It's always recommended to, to plant young, especially Vespalia because once you've, you've read up a little bit or you've attended a workshop, for instance, you'll have all the knowledge and information you need. So if you start with a very young tree, you're really starting at the best time and you can prune it as and when you wish.
Because sometimes when you, you get a tree from a nursery, it may have been grown to create size rather than fertility, just because a bigger tree essentially can be more expensive. Not always, it won't always be sold that way. But if you can start with a very young tree, it's always best to start in the beginning and then you'll have the best chance of success.
For those of you listening, I've done some basic. illustrations. And the first one is literally a branch. It looks just like a blunt branch. You can't see the roots, but it would have been planted in the brown. And this is a diagonal cordon. It would be planted on a bit of an angle. My angle in my picture is a bit extreme, but you can see that the branch has vegetative buds snuggled up all along.
When in the UK would you plant your dormant bare root whip for a new espalier planting? Firstly, Susan, I just let say you, your drawings are much better than anything I could ever create. So, anyone, anyone that can catch it on video, you'll see a, a great example of, of sort of what we're trying to, to describe essentially.
So, a bear root tree we are gonna plant in around January or February time, March would be the very sort of last time. And, and probably we will certainly wouldn't go to the end of the march. It'd be very early March. So January to March would be our bare root planting of, of, of trees. so yeah, you're gonna plant it and then, after that you're gonna be pruning.
So you're planting this bare root whip, this little stick. It is dormant because bare root trees have to be dormant. If they don't have any soil on their roots, they'll just die, unless they are dormant. So they're in their kind of sleepy winter mode. You plant it. Do you give it a cut? It's just one stick.
Do you cut it on that first day, the winter planting day, or do you just let it do its thing? No, absolutely. If in doubt, always cut, I'd say. It's, it's probably the, the biggest mistake people generally make is, is that they, they, they don't prune enough or make certain cuts, and you'll, you'll never kill a tree by cutting.
So what we would do is, Let's talk about, let's say a diagonal chord on so this angular tree, you're going to plant it. Ideally, you have some kind of framework or support him before we've talked about using bamboos, but you can use any kind of structure that's going to give you something good to tie against and also represent the angle of growth that you're working towards.
And that just, It represents what you're trying to achieve, but also guides you when you come to prune it, you're going to see which bud is going to best shoot in the direction you want. So we would have, planted the tree, firmed it all in, soil's all at the right level. and then we're going to Basically begin to tie the bottom of the tree into the support.
Setting the Angle and Choosing the Bud
And once we've got that, we've set our angle. And then at that point, we're going to choose the bud that is the best one to grow in that direction. So if it's a diagonal cordon, we're going to cut to a. A bud that's on the underside of the tree. So when you cut it, when it regrows, a bit like when you do with your roses or any other pruning, it will shoot in the direction you want and it will start that diagonal growth for you.
Exactly. So here we are, like you're, you're planting your tree, you're looking at the buds and you're thinking, well, I don't want my shoot to go downwards. I want it to keep going upwards and continuing. My diagonal, energy here. And so you'll cut just after the ideal little budlet that's going to go, in your direction.
Okay. So there we go.
First Cut and Spring Growth
That's our first cut it's the winter or the fall or whenever you're planting your tree and then the spring comes and growth begins. So all the other buds on this beautiful whip start to come to life and you'll get little shoots as you can see in the second image, if you're watching on YouTube.
so these beautiful little shoots come out. So it's June in the UK, I guess at this point, and you're taking out your pruners and you're pruning again, aren't you? That's right. Yeah. So what you're going to do now, you've got your, your leader growing away. You're going to leave that alone. So your leader is your, your main branch that's heading up.
Yeah. All you're going to do is tie that in all through the growing season. That doesn't get touched again till next winter. So that's the first thing you can tie it in. And I find it's best to tie in first because it, it reduces any of the confusion. That one that's tied in, you're not going to accidentally prune, especially when you're doing workshops, it just helps to just reduce any of the confusion.
So if it's not tied in, you know, it's free to be pruned.
June Pruning Techniques
So any of your laterals that have grown and in June, they're going to be around. Five, seven, eight, or more leaves, depending on the, on the figure, anything that's more than five leaves long on your shoot, you're going to cut it back and you're going to head it back to five leaves.
Wow, okay. So just to summarize, you're going to let your main direction keep going, that one, the tip of this one, you know, diagonal chord on, we're using that as our example. It keeps growing. We're not cutting that right now, but the lateral branches, the side branches, we're going to cut back to five leaves.
Now that sounds easy to me. I understand that there is something, that the way that the leaves are organized on the branch, they start off with a little bit of a whorl of leaves at the base. Does it matter? Do you count those? And what the basal cluster? So when you're looking at that, that lateral branch that's coming off, Where it leaves your main leader, there'll be a world, like you say, Susan, of maybe three, four leaves.
There'll be very tightly, you know, congested it, that kind of internode between the lateral. You can ignore any of that. The first leaf you count will often be about. An inch or two away from the main stem. So my first leaf I will count will not be anything to do with the basal cluster. And it will be that first leaf that's kind of, you know, clearly defined away from the main stem.
So then I'd count that as number one and then the alternate leaves going up to five, sometimes the basal cluster and first leaf can be, you know, relatively close. Don't get too caught up in it. You know, yes, that's that, those five leaves we're going for, but if you made a mistake and it was six or it was four.
Don't worry too much. People worry too much, I'll say, is the main thing. Oh, I love it. It simplifies things so much. Okay, so this is, our, our June growth. By June, you are making these cuts of the lateral branches and the main branch you're letting go in its direction. So then the tree continues to grow, the summer gets warm, your I'm treating your tree.
Well, you're making sure it's well irrigated and all that good stuff and it grows more. Each of those cuts will then grow more and more.
August Pruning and Spur Creation
What do you do in August? You're out there with your pruners again, I take it. Yeah, absolutely. So the reason we cut in June is because it's still actively growing. So the cut we've made in June will cause a response because the tree is still actively growing.
So where we've pruned it at five leaves, the tree will, will, you know, even, yeah, less than a week later, we'll start putting out a new bud and then a new shoot. So in August, when we returned to our laterals, there would be. Three, four, five, maybe more leaves that have gone past the original prune at five leaves.
So we will locate where we've cut it before, it'll be pretty clear and obvious. So where our original prune was made in June, we'll count two leaves above that and cut that off there. So you're going to end up in August with seven leaves in total. On that main lateral that's growing now, sometimes you've got a really vigorous tree and you've got your first five leaves and you're, you're looking for new growth, but growth doesn't always happen in a super predictable way.
What if you know, you've got one of the shoots turned into a V and there's two choices, where should your extra two buds come from part one of the V or part two of the V, are these things that you need to consider? Yeah. So, I mean, The main aim of the game, the reason we're pruning these laterals is we're trying to create spurs.
So you're wanting essentially multi shoots growing because this young lateral is what's going to turn into your spur. So where you've pruned at five leaves in June and it's re shot Often, and the whole purpose of pruning it in June is, yes, a new leader of that lateral grows, but what you're provoking is buds to burst further down the lateral.
You want all your buds bursting and your fruit buds essentially to be somewhere within six inches from the main stem. So, Yes, you want other shoots to have shot that one, that leader, you would have cut to two leaves in August and there should ideally, the best situation is the leader grows, next leaf down, you'll see some semi vigorous growth, which you can then just cut back to one to two buds.
And ideally, as you track down on that lateral, somewhere around the third or fourth leaf. You often get a bud that begins to swell or begins to grow with the least vigor. The less vigorous the bud's growth is, the more likely it's going to ultimately turn into a fruit bud. Huh. Oh, that's interesting. I wonder what the science is there.
I guess vigor, hmm, interesting. Vigor means it wants to push out into a shoot. And if it's a little bit lazy and hanging around, maybe it wants to turn into a fruit. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. okay. So that was the first year. So essentially things are getting bushier over time. You're, you know, and you're creating this space for these clusters of fruit buds.
what happens next?
Winter Pruning and Leader Management
So let's think about the winter. You've done your two cuts, and then it's winter time and the leaves will fall off the tree as the nutrients from the leaves first go down into the root system. And then you've got this bare branch, which has, you know, now it has side branches on it after doing this pruning.
so what happens next? So, wintertime is, is, you know, one of the best times to really study your tree and see what's happened from the work you've done. And this is where. espalier pruning. You know, if it's in your back garden, it's such a great way you can continue study after you've pruned what's happened.
So when you're in the winter, there's none of the foliage, none of the leaves, and you can really look at your, your, the early stages of your spur system and what's happening. and then also the main pruning you're going to do of a young tree is on the leader. so your leader that you've tied in all year will probably be Almost a meter long.
So it would have grown just grown very simply and you would have tied it in. You're going to look at it. and you're going to take it back to around 30 to 40 centimeters from when you originally cut it the winter before we go with around 30 to 40 centimeters, depending on the size of a tree we're trying to create.
and the reason of Cutting back hard like that is you're provoking lateral bud growth. Every cut you, you, you do provokes a reaction. So by cutting that leader back again to a, a bud in the direction you want it to shoot, you'll cut back in, in February, the leader will shoot again. But because you cut there in February, the leader grows, but it's the buds below that will also begin to awaken and, and create more laterals.
Those laterals are what you're then gonna do, attacking them in June and August. Turn those laterals into Spurs. That makes so much sense to me. So, by cutting back hard, you are removing some buds at the end of your leader, which means that whatever energy the tree has hidden away in its root system, in the spring, it only has to feed the remaining part of the branch.
So, if the branch is shorter, Each remaining bud gets more of the share of stored energy, so it'll shoot out with more side branches and more stuff, more leaves and more bushiness in a way, and hopefully more fruiting buds. And I guess that's really what we're looking for.
Identifying Fruiting Buds
So, where I wanted to go from here is to learn to identify how the fruiting buds look different from vegetative buds.
Can you describe to me what we're looking at here? Sure. So what you've got there are juvenile or young spurs. The one on the left of the screen is younger than the one on the right. And what you can see is essentially what we've just been talking about. It's, it's lateral growth that's been cut back in the June and the August.
and what you're beginning to get is get the buds to waken up closer to the main stem. So it's a, is a diagonal cord on here. So you can see the chestnut love or the, or the wooden stake we're using to tie in. And then any of the lateral growth that's coming off of that main stem is where we've begun to do our, our lorette system of pruning.
The Lorette System Explained
Tell me a little bit about this Lorette system. Who, who was Lorette? What was his system and how does what you do relate to that? So, Louis Lorette was a French gardener that, that, that trained and worked with, with apples and pears predominantly, and really came up with this particular system of pruning and training fruit trees.
Here's the, the full. Louie Lorette system, he would go out and prune his trees every six weeks, so a bit more fastidious than what we do, and, and there's a balance between what Louie Lorette did and what, you know, general gardeners might do, and I guess we're somewhere in the middle because we prune our trees around four times a year.
The main thing is, is that he would go out. Daily or regularly doing the tying in and he was really one of the, you know, The first gardeners to have to create this espalier style of system and the pruning and this continual pruning throughout the season I'm really studying the buds and the creation of spurs.
So how is what you do different? I mean, he went out every few weeks. You're going out less. Is it a modified system that you use? Not precisely exactly what he did. Yeah, absolutely. So what's generally documented in, in books nowadays is it's called the modified Lorette system. And I, and if you preen your espaliers, you know, twice a year, it's known as the modified Lorette system.
So we're somewhere between the, the modified Lorette system and the full Lorette system. So the, The slightly less modified Lorette system is what I'd say we're doing.
Advantages of Espalier Pruning
So in terms of advantages, what would you say the main reason that you love espalier pruning? Why do you recommend it? You teach workshops at the Newt, I understand.
You are passionate. They call you Andy Apples for heaven's sakes. So, what is it that speaks to you about espalier pruning? it's just the, it's the constant care and attention that you get to have with the apple trees. It's that, you know, you, you, you could walk right past them every day and you wouldn't notice.
Some of the individualities of them, but when you go to just tie in or to prune, you really study that, that individual tree and, and where you've pruned the year before, or even six weeks ago, when you prune in June, you'll cut, you'll go back out a week later and you'll see the buds begin to grow and the actual, that the lower buds have also begun to grow.
So it's really, creating that, that. perennial relationship with that fruit tree and seeing how it molds and forms, which is why I'd always recommend planting the tree from, you know, a bare root whip in that first year, because you're starting that relationship in its first early years. And you get to study as it gets older and older.
And, you know, know, fruit is great, but blossom is, you know, it's, it's a Spalier is, it's part of artistry and beauty as, as well as utilitarian and creating the fruit. So it's a really nice blend of, of, of beauty and production, I'd say. I think, you know, one of the big. selling points for us, especially in the UK.
And when I talked to our visitors is, is, gardens in the UK generally getting smaller, you know, and the beauty of an espalier or one of the, one of the great advantages of an espalier fruit tree is. Like in the beginning of your presentation, the amount of varieties or the, the, the small amount of space that a trained fruit tree can take up.
So generally, you know, if you've got a half standard tree, it's going to, you know, a few good, a good few square meters it would take up. Whereas if you're growing it flat against a wall, you only need 20, 30 centimeters of bed. And it's only going to come off of the fence or the wall that way. and then, you know, there's a lot of people with a lot of fences that they don't really like the look of.
You can either put some sort of ornamental trained plant or vine over it, or if you, you know, with a trained fruit tree, and you're going to be able to walk out in your back garden and, and pick, pick fruit straight off of the wall. It's, the potential is really amazing and especially, you know, those, the image of the, the Strathcona garden, you know, you didn't need too much artistry.
If you understand how to do the espalier pruning in order to get these fruit spurs, the apple spurs, Then it's just so simple, and you can have so many different varieties in a small space. So, if I could start again, that's one of the things that I would, that I would do in my own backyard. though I would do a million different things in my own backyard if I could start again.
Workshops and Learning Opportunities
so Andy, how, tell me a little bit about what you do in the new, like you teach workshops. How can people learn more about your workshops? How can people learn from you and what is a website you would recommend that they go to visit? So as I say from the Newton Somerset, we do have our own web page So all of our workshops and our daily programs are on there.
We run garden tours daily We are a hotel and spa, but more than that, we're a a day visit a garden. You know, we, we encourage people and welcome people to visit the garden 364 days of the year. you can, you can rock onto a garden tour every day. and then if you wanted to book onto a workshop, we run winter pruning, summer pruning.
in June is when we run our espalier fruit pruning. So we go into the June prune of the apples and the pears, but we also look at all the other types of fruits we have as well. And also that with the espalier workshop, especially, it's really looking at the, the artistry behind it, you know, rather than pruning a branch, sometimes we'll bend the branch and think about how the sap is flowing and how we can get the buds to burst.
in different ways. One of the images you had before of the crown, which is where we bend the branches over and that slows the sap flow. the slower the sap flow, the more likely it's, it's going to, to, to burst and create fruit buds. And it's, it's really looking more at the design and the fun you can have.
It's more about, you know, fun than anything and really sort of studying your fruit trees. It's more fun than farming. And yeah, and the, and the, the fruit is the bonus. Yeah, absolutely. It is the bonus. Absolutely. Finally, the other question that I have for you is I know you recommend that people start with a whip from a specialist fruit tree nursery.
do you know people who have started with a purchased espalier? I know I'm Thinking in the UK, they're probably also available where you can just buy your ready made espalier, pop it in your garden beside the fence. How do you feel about those? Yeah, no, I think it's great. I mean, we have a variety of different visitors.
and we, we, we talk to some of our guests and, potentially they're a little older and we say, Oh, you can do this. And in five years I have this and they're like, Oh, I'll be, I'll be dead by then. And I say, I'm sure you probably won't be, but if you want something a little quicker, there are plenty of good nurseries.
We have heaps that, that, that, that do grow them very well. and you're going to then be able to buy a, yeah. most likely a potted tree. and it's going to have a lot of the first three, maybe five years of pruning and they've created, you know, laterals and the spurs. But, you know, it is a great opportunity because you have something already, you're going to be, you know, bearing fruit in a year or two, or even in that first year, but you're still going to have a juvenile tree.
So you get to have that fun of creating your own work at the top of the tree or halfway up and continue the life of that. So, yeah, absolutely. I've got nothing against buying a, you know, juvenile or semi mature tree from a nursery. And, we've done it at times because we are, you know, a large visitor attraction and sometimes new gardens are created.
And we want something a little bit mature for people to see in those first. two years. so we actually we've, we've been lucky to have a balance of new and old trees being planted. and yeah, it, it works well. It's, it's, you know, there's some great nurseries out there providing trees. Do you, I gotta know, it looks like a very fancy estate.
It looks quite beautiful. Do, do like movie stars come there? I mean, who stays in the hotel? Yeah, it is a very fancy hotel. It's lovely. It's, you know, you should, you should come, come, come hang out, come stay. but I'd say very humble as well. You know, we do get all sorts of people staying there. We're not far from Glastonbury showgrounds.
So during Glastonbury week, you're going to get all sorts of people staying then. but I would say gardens are the sort of, Great sort of leveling grounds, you know, everyone's got, you know, cause you run these garden tours and we'd be taking hotel guests around, but maybe we're taking, you know, day visitors at the same time.
Everyone's got a garden. Everyone's got a lawn. That's got an issue. Everyone's got a bug. They've got an issue with it. So it doesn't matter what walk of life or how much money you have generally, you know, people really enjoy getting out in the garden and have very similar questions about it. So, it's lovely hotel, lovely spa, but the garden's the main attraction, I'd say.
Oh, I can't wait. I'm going to come visit for sure. I'm coming to visit.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
So, all right, well, let's, it's time for us to wrap up the show now. That went pretty quickly. so. If people wanna learn more about this topic, if maybe you tuned in to the show and you didn't see the beginning, it will be on YouTube so you can listen to it when it goes out on Reality Radio 1 0 1.
And of course it's not going out live this month on reality Radio one oh one.com. It's going to be on YouTube. people can listen to the podcast, you know, on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasters they have. So this resource will be there for you if you want to watch this again, to look at the pictures and really figure out.
But Andy, you did such a beautiful job explaining it and also demystifying it, making it less scary. And I think that's the thing that it scares people off. They think they can't do it, that you have to be an artist or an expert. And that's what I really like. I appreciate. So, folks, if you enjoyed this, please say hello in the comments, you know, put your comment in the comment box on YouTube, do subscribe.
To our YouTube channel and to our podcast because every month we have fabulous new shows on great topics, everything to do with fruit trees, perennial crops, food forests and stuff like that. Finally, if you are passionate about fruit trees, go to orchardpeople. com slash sign dash up. I have a newsletter and once a month you will hear about new podcasts, new videos, new articles that are up on the website.
and course information. I do a course, a specialist fruit tree pruning course. And, if you sign up soon, there's going to be a big freebie for my new book on fruit tree pruning. Now, in my book I don't talk about espalier, I talk about other types of pruning. But who knows, maybe one day I'll do one on espalier too.
Probably not, but you never know. So, yeah, give me a year or two anyways, so that's all for now. Thank you so much to Andy for being on the show. Thank you to you people who are watching it and enjoying this information. next month, we're going to be on live again. so make sure you sign up to my website or to people.
com slash sign up. And I will see you again next month. Thanks for tuning in and bye for now. Yeah.