Trellis fruit trees – original compact garden

How do trees in the garden usually grow? Away from buildings, with a spreading crown, which is often not formed by the owners and is cut off only when necessary. As a result, the tree occupies a solid piece of the site, and getting to the crop on the upper branches can be problematic.

The use of trellises when growing fruit trees solves both of these problems. The advantages of this method of creating a garden are many:

1. You can plant a tree directly at the wall of a house, outbuilding, fence;
2. The garden will turn out to be very compact, you can collect a rich harvest even in a small area;
3. You yourself choose how the tree will grow, there are many options for forming the crown;
4. Trees on wall trellises will decorate the house, protect the walls from overheating in the summer heat. And the plants themselves near the stone wall receive additional protection from the wind;
5. You can form a hedge from fruit trees, which will beautifully divide the site into zones.

First, choose a place where your fruit tree will grow on the trellis. You can grow apple trees, and pears, and cherries, and plums, and apricots, and peaches in this way. We advise you to choose varieties that are suitable for the climate of your region, undersized, best grafted on a dwarf stock.

Then we build a trellis. Usually, wooden supports, metal posts and wire are used for this. The design must be as reliable as possible! The weight of the branches, especially with fruits, will be rather big, so the trellis needs to be made strong.

Be prepared for the fact that over time, the supports for the branches will have to be repaired, and the wire should be regularly tightened, because the tree will grow on them for many years.

Choose one of the many crown shaping options. We have given examples in the photo. The most common are a simple horizontal two-armed cordon, beautiful fan and vertical palmettes.

To form the crown of a fruit tree on a trellis begin with planting an annual seedling. The branches are cut, pinched, tied to the trellis wire. The most important thing is to set the direction of growth for the tree, make sure that lateral shoots do not appear, the crown does not change the given shape.

The process, of course, is painstaking and lengthy, we admit. It will take several years for the fan palmette to appear on the stone fence. However, there is nothing particularly difficult in this, pruning is also carried out in ordinary fruit trees..

As a result, a flattened crown shape is obtained, which looks attractive, allows you to conveniently collect fruits and takes up a minimum of space..

The trellis garden has its disadvantages. First of all, its creation implies the application of great efforts to form the crown. In addition, such trees live a little less than normal ones. However, the difference is not so significant as to give up such an original, beautiful and convenient way of growing fruit trees..