Planting Trees in Narrow Spaces

Dave and Wayne Mezitt talk about how to train trees, shrubs, and other plants to grow in a flat plane along a support such as a wall or trellis.

David Epstein : Thanks for watching our video here Growing Wisdom today, and I am following Wayne Mezitt over to great Maple he has espaliered against the house, and this is pretty fantastic Wayne. Wayne Mezitt: This is white Leaf Japanese Maple, and it turns this brilliant Purple and Red and Orange color every year at this time. David Epstein: So Wayne, tell me about this method of growing plant. You've got this Japanese Maple, you have got a Chamaecyparis behind you. Can you do with any plant? Wayne Mezitt: That can be done with most any plant. The idea is to make it so that you can plant a tree or bush or shrub, whatever you want, in a narrow space. We have only go about a foot of soil underneath here, and the walk is so close by, if we planted a regular size plant here it would crowd us out, so we couldn't walk. So by putting it back and laying the branches up against the wall, we cover the blank wall without having the more mess of shrub like form. David Epstein: if you had not espaliered this against the wall and just planted in the middle of the paddy, would it look like a regular tree? Wayne Mezitt: This is a regular tree. David Epstein: Two regular trees. So, there is no special flat tree that you buy. Wayne Mezitt: No. David Epstein: Now, next question to be, is this hard to do, and of course I want you to show me how to do it. Wayne Mezitt: It's not hard to do, because its just a matter of cutting off the branches at the right time, cutting off the right branches and trimming them properly. Let me take you to another location where I can show you how we do the actual pruning to make it grow flat against the wall. David Epstein: Alright, I am following you. Wayne Mezitt: Dave this is a Espaliered Witch Hazel, the way I trim this, is to put nails into the wall, into the shingles themselves, and then attach the branches with ropes, so that it holds it against the wall until it starts to grow normally on its own. David Evstein: Basic idea, get it flat against the wall initially. Wayne Mezitt: Right, but then you have to be careful, because if it grows too long that way, and the stem expands too far it can go to the stem. So you have to check this every year to two, to make sure that, that the attachment is loose enough, so it holds it against the wall, but start make killing stem by girdling it. David Epstein: So Wayne, we are going to do a little bit of pruning today. Wayne Mezitt : Yes, we need to take off this branches that are reaching out too far and figure out which ones we want to tie back against the wall. David Epstein: Alright, anyway you got to work, I'll just kind of watch. Quite a bit of work. Wayne Mezitt: Well, we have got more to do here, Dave. What we have done, is to clear off the center part of this, you can see the top is still in need of work, and we got a few more branches to clean out before it's going to be in its finished form. So let see when we can get done. David Epstein : Alright, come back for all our video at GrowingWisdom.com. We are going to get to work.