ELEGANT EDIBLES: THE ART OF TRAINED FRUIT TREES

Neat, productive and full of old-fashioned charm, trained fruit trees are a time-honoured feature of the kitchen garden. Martin Fish shares his expert advice on choosing shapes, training your own trees, and keeping them in good form for years to come

- 

For me, there is nothing nicer than picking fresh fruit from the garden, but as gardens tend to get smaller finding space for fruit trees can be a problem. The answer? Grow trained trees that take up much less space! They can be freestanding or grown against fences and walls, and they also look decorative.

Most fruit trees respond well to being trained into various shapes and designs. Apples and pears tend to be grown mainly as cordons, espaliers and step-overs, although they also make good fans. Stone fruits, such as plums, cherries, peaches and apricots, are mainly grown in a fan shape against a wall or fence. This method doesn't require as much pruning once established, which suits those fruits better.

TRAINED TREE TYPES

■ Cordon - A single-stemmed tree that has side shoots pruned back annually to create fruiting spurs. Oblique cordons are traditionally grown at 45° to help reduce vigour and to increase the length of fruiting wood, and vertical cordons are simply planted upright. Both types are planted 60-90cm (2-3ft) apart and are supported by horizontal wires.

■ Espalier - A single vertical stem with horizontal branches growing from it. They have two, three or four tiers that are supported by wires on posts. The available space limits the spread of the horizontal branches, but normally it is no more than 2m (6ft) on each side of the main vertical stem.

■ Step-over - A type of espalier with one tier of horizontal branches growing on a short stem, approximately 30-45cm (12-18in) tall. These were popular in Victorian times along the edges of beds and borders in kitchen gardens.