Monroe County Master Gardener Association

Book review and some research.

Fences and Hedges and Other Garden dividersBy Richard Bird, photography by Stephen Robson.
When I chose this book for a review, I found it much more entertaining and educational than I first thought. To me, it is much more than a project book as claimed on the cover. I would recommend it just for the beautiful photos alone. Each fence, trellis, or hedge (and more) has a materials and equipment list and a detailed fold out page of instructions including sketches and diagrams. There are also instructions for pruning and trimming.
When reading the fruit wall section I learned a lot more about all manner of fruits that can be trained in different designs. I knew espaliers-but cordons and fans, pleaching and palmette? So that led me down some rabbit holes of research giving me a deeper understanding of the different techniques which I will attempt to explain here.

Pleaching or plashing is the art of training the canopy of trees into shapes that create a ceiling or tunnel. Some are planted in a straight line and pruned to a flat surface above the desired height of the trunk. Branches are tied to wire or canes to make tiers and kept in design by regular pruning. I have seen trees like this but didn’t know the name of the design. The talent of training fruit bearing plants and trees goes back to the Romans and Egyptians. However Europeans, especially the French, practiced and developed the designs we are more familiar with in current times.

Palmette is fan shaped espalier design and cordon is the growth of a tree as a single stem with several branches trimmed to grow outward then turning upward shaped like a candelabra. Pollarding is a technique of removing branches of a tree far enough up to keep wildlife from bothering or eating them. The next step is repeated removal of branches creating a thick trunk with thinner branches above it. The foliage is lovely but you may liken it to a work of art when the leaves fall and you see the skeleton of the tree exposing a sculpture like design. Coppicing cuts the branches of a tree nearly to the ground yearly to harvest wood for different uses. The low canopy of foliage can be a habitat for wild life as well. This technique is used widely in woodland management rather than designed gardening. So these are some descriptions of a few different techniques I found after my interest piqued and I started looking for more information. Alas, I do not have illustrations.

I found a few good reasons for pruning trees to espalier designs. 1) They take up much less space so even a small yard or up against a building would accommodate their growth. 2)They are easy to train when they are young. 3) The sun reaches the spaced-out foliage better and results in the ripening of more fruit. 4) It’s easier to reach early fruit to thin for larger fruit growth.
I actually focused on the espalier design for this report, but I would recommend this book if you are interested in building or enjoy viewing well illustrated walls, hedges, fences, or decorative dividers. There are several pages in the back of the book showing basic techniques of building and gardening techniques as well. I’m not intending on building, but I just loved the illustrations of plants, flowers, trees and gardens. This book would also make a nice gift.
Winnie Webb. Master gardener.