I have a 35' x 11' plot that I would like to plant with about 15 fruit trees. The Dave Wilson nursery has recommendations for both hedgerow planting and espalier planting, but I've never heard of anyone doing a hedgerow of fruit trees and was wondering if anyone out there has any success or failure stories.
Also, I'm assuming that espalier planting will require a structure upon which to espalier the tree, so that's an additional expense and maintenance concern, right?
Thanks.
i would start your planning process by deciding on what trees you want to grow, and then working out the training/spacing question. different species of fruit (apples vs. pears vs. cherries vs. plums vs. apricots, etc) have different growth habits, some of which are more or less conducive to espalier or hedgerows, and they also have different ultimate sizes, especially when you factor in the rootstock's effect on tree size.
do you want to do a mixture of fruit species, or only one or two types?
with a little more info, folks will be able to give a better answer to your training question!
My tree selection is limited by low chill and low summer heat requirements (the down side of living in a truly temperate clime). So far, I was planning on:
dorsett golden and white winter permain apples
comice and monterry pears
arctic glo, double delight nectarines
may pride, honey babe, and tasty giant peaches
beauty, burgundy, and elephant heart plums
I would love to add a tart baking apple like gravenstein or granny smith, but wonder if they would languish in my climate. In another post I was informed that apples are more forgiving of lack of chill, but do they also forgive lack of summer heat? We often have fog until noon, and then my neighbor's blue spruce shades half of the area from 2pm on. That 's not much direct sun. My three 40-year-old apple trees that I'll be pulling out to make room for the orchard, seem to do OK there. (Aside: They're great trees, but too big to easily maintain, seem to have some sort of disease that makes their trunk crack and peel and turn black, and produce way more apples than we can use.)
A stella cherry and a pedro walnut may be part of the orchard, but I have other places in my yard that I can put them.
I am also going to put in interlaken and venus grapes, but obviously those will be espaliered.
I guess the main question is which of the two methods allows me to pack the trees in most densely and still get a 6 mo harvest for a family of 4 with extra for canning.
Have you tried Venus grapes? Of the 5 varieties that fruited for me the first time last summer Venus was by far my least favorite in taste and texture. Maybe it will be better this year, but if not I'll overgraft or replace it.
The others I have and prefer are Sweet Seduction, Glenora, Canadice, and Muscat Ottonel that has some seeds. Mine were all eaten straight, maybe Venus is good for juice or wine or something.
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