About Espalier Pears
Carol Jacobson, left, and Carol Butz lead the effort to keep the pear espaliers in shape.
Our fruit garden has joined the international espalier society Potager du Roi headquartered in Versailles France. We will be listed among the world’s espalier gardens.
We have many pears growing on our eastern trellis each trained in a unique pattern. The patterns were set up by our late fruit garden designer Kristan Johnson. The many shapes of our espaliers were inspired by beautiful espaliers in France, England and other European countries. But each is unique and was imagined and drawn by Johnson in 2005. Included are Kristan’s original drawings and a photo of the espaliers when they were planted. It is fascinating to see how each started and how each looks now. Kristan, Bill Davis along with Tom Wake, Greg Guiliani, De Arbogast and others built the trellises, soldered the copper that formed the outline of the shape each espalier was to take. They also got the rootstocks and grafted each tree.
Each tree has been shaped in a unique pattern. Espalier refers to a formal way of training in two dimensions on wires, walls or other surfaces. Come to our garden to help and learn how to make and care for espaliers. Espaliers produce large amounts of fruit in defined areas.
These pear espaliers were designed by Kristan Johnson to showcase the many shapes that are possible. Here are some examples. Come to the garden to see them all.
To dwarf the trees and make them easier to train, many of the pear espaliers were originally started by grafting a Comice variety on a dwarf Quince rootstock. Comice, unlike many pear cultivars, is compatible with quince rootstocks. Then each variety was grafted to the Comice interstem.
To the north of the pear espalier sign are pear espaliers grown on Old Home X Farmingdale 97 rootstocks. The variety is Taylor’s Gold which is a trademarked name of a russetted Comice. You can see these trees are more vigorous than those on the Quince C rootstocks.
To the south, Kristan Johnson switched to the dwarfing Quince C rootstock. He grafted on a Comice interstem and then topworked the variety Concorde and also the variety Conference. Notice that the trees on the pear rootstock are more vigorous than those on the Quince C rootstock.
