Worrying the Apple Trees

Espalier, n. A fruit tree trained on a lattice  –OED

Confession: I like to imagine myself as a walled medieval garden. It gives me a comforting crinkle up my spine. Secret bits of me, like ladies in paintings with tall foreheads and floaty gowns, play hidden between leaves of espaliered apples and pears.

I’ve wondered how to make my real backyard echo this fantasy. How to train orchard branches along my dilapidated Home-Depot fence. But the directions online confuse me. And I have no confidence in my gardening instincts.  

So when Morgan greeted me at the Farms with an invitation to espalier some new dwarf apple trees around the Learning Garden, I said thank you very much.

She showed me how to tuck the flexible young branches through a chain-link fence and graft an accidental break, with knife and tape, if I pushed one down too far. I learned to bend the branch just low enough that it will feel like falling. Facing death, the tree will make new fruit to ensure its seed goes on. 

This year, the trees will grow to anchor on the fence. Next year, they can be pruned and shaped. Soon, they’ll be leafy walls to play between and gather apples from. And all because they make fruit when they’re worried. Those secret ladies in my head might do the same.