About Me

Dear visitor,

Espalier.org is an educational website about trained fruit trees.

This website offers both beginners and experienced specialists a kick-start to expand their knowledge and skills.

This website is intended to offer you ‘all you want to know to grow your own trained fruit trees’, in a clear and user friendly format. Growing your own trained fruit tree follows rules and guidelines, and has a toolkit of techniques. As you will discover: it’s a creative craft, not a straightforward recipe.

 

My Journey

My personal journey on this subject started with a course by fruit training guru Jan Freriks (The Netherlands) in 2015. Other important sources of inspiration were multiple visits to gardens with trained fruit trees in France, The Netherlands, Belgium and the UK.

During my own journey:

– I worked as a volunteer at historic sites, to take care of trained fruit trees during the seasons.

– I started growing my own trees, studied their growth and development.

– I visited many gardens with trained fruit trees, in The Netherlands, France, Belgium and the UK.

– I studied a lot of literature, about the fine art of training fruit trees.

Along the way I encountered various struggles:

– information is often poorly accessible, for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the art of trained fruit trees is a highly technical subject. This makes clear writing a challenge.

Most literature about the subject dates from the old days. Old literature is written in a time when basic plant knowledge was simply unknown. In today’s world, an overload of information about plants is available, but more than the average person can handle, or needs at a specific moment.

Literature is often written in foreign languages, which causes problems with different terminology, translations.

– Plant behaviour and response to pruning changes in time, not only during the seasons, but also as a tree ages. Plant behaviour and response varies depending on local cultivation conditions, such as soil type, climate and micro-climate. Moreover, one should be aware that a single fruit tree actually consists of 2 or 3 different trees. In short: two trees with the same cultivar name can behave quite differently on 2 locations.

– in today’s world, like-minded people on the subject are scattered and unorganized.

I hope Espalier.org will act as a platform for enthusiasts, both experienced veterans and new rookies.

In time I started developing my own course materials, for personal purpose.  

After some time I thought it would make sense to share this knowledge:

– to help other people

– to help maintain trained fruit trees at historic sites

Espalier.org should become the go-to platform for people interested in trained fruit trees,

both hobbyists and ‘professionals’.

My Qualifications

You may be wondering what my background is.

From young age I grew up at my parents’ plant nursery at the heart of horticulture: the Westland in The Netherlands. I always had a passion for plants, their biodiversity, development, biological phenomena, genetic background, environmental interaction, cultivation methods. Therefore, it should be no surprise I studied Horticulture (research) at Agricultural College Delft, followed by  Plant Breeding & Biodiversity at Wageningen University. Through the years, both in my horticultural career and as a hobby, I have grown numerous crops. This includes: orchids, bulbs, vegetables, fruit, perennials, annuals, shrubs, and (of course) fruit trees. This also includes various phases in the horticultural production chain: plant breeding, plant propagation (incl. plant tissue culture) and crop production.

Besides DIY gardening I have various leisure activities related to plants, including: plant scouting, cultivar selection, plant tissue culture, cooking, photography, printing, webdesign, flower arranging, knowledge management, garden visits, health and well-being, education.

Trained fruit trees is a niche that combines and requires ALL my experiences, skills, intuition over the last 50 years. I hope like-minded individuals and organizations will recognize this and appreciate my efforts.  

I welcome any feedback and opportunities for cooperation.

With this work I want to honour all pioneers on this art whose footsteps I follow. 

Special reference goes to Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie, the former pioneer and Head Gardener at the Castle of Versailles, during the heydays of fruit tree training.

 

On your personal journey to grow trained fruit trees I’m wishing you joyful discoveries, nice people to meet, lots of fun and a tasty harvest (after some patience 😉).

Ed ‘Evergreen’ van Paassen,

Espalier.org ©

 

 

 

This is an ongoing initiative.

I welcome any feedback or contributions for improvement.

 I hope we can make this project a collective journey!

Special requests

Don’t hesitate to reach out, for instance in case you:

– are the host a relevant event (grafting day, open day, day trip).

– are a volunteer and interested to get involved

– are a writer, in need of high-quality photos of trained fruit trees (and historic gardens)

– have books available

Support Me!

Espalier.org is a single person’s project; I do not receive any subsidy.

If you value my efforts, please consider a subscription or making a donation.

Contact Me

E-mail: info@espalier.org

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