faulker085

Another great benefit of espaliers is the ease of protecting them from late frosts.  Frost is threatening my home town tonight.  I found some tarps and sheets and clipped them to the wire support system to provide some protection against frost.  It's doubtful that these passive measures will be effective under 28 degrees but the forecast is for 30 degrees tonight.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Tarps and blankets covering espaliers will protect to 28 degrees if you're lucky. The micro-climate here with the cement driveway close by might be enough to protect these blossoms if there is no wind but I didn't want to chance it.  If you're lucky enough to have your espaliers planted against a rock or brick wall, you've got excellent protection if you can use a tarp to cover the tree and include the wall allowing the radiant heat to be trapped by the tarp. Good luck to everyone.  I'm hopeful I can still have a harvest this year.

The first step for any espalier is to create a support system to provide a place to tie down limbs and support the weight of the tree and its fruit. You can use any sturdy structure. I choose the posts and wire method because it was inexpensive and relatively easy to put up even with no carpentry skills. This post is meant to demonstrate one type of support.  It is not a step-by-step tutorial so make sure you read all the way through before you start. Obviously you're going to need to set some wooden posts. How you should do this will depend very much on your climate so I will leave it to you to research this yourself. Keep in mind these posts need to be very sturdy. Imagine a fruit tree full of apples being blow around by a summer thunderstorm. You need this to withstand quite a bit. In Wisconsin, we have hard winters with lots of frost heave so these posts are set 4 feet into the ground and are surrounded by concrete. The stuff you'll need. On top is some braided wire....