anton muttered:


"keith ;-)" wrote in message
...
I have two young apple trees ,one is sunset which is a spur bearer i have
planted this against a fence to train as espalier i would also like to do
the same with apple discovery which is tip bearing.I have found out
recently
that tip bearers are not good for training as espaliers.
Has anyone trained one & had success or are you best to plant tip bearers
as
standards?
They are for a fence in the vegetable garden or can they be trained with
another method?


I have a Discovery on M111 that I trained as a not-very-brilliant espalier.
The shoots are very stout and stiff compared with many other apple
varieties- so it's more difficult, though still possible, to persuade it
into a restricted form such as an espalier. I haven't always given it the
attention that it deserves when training it, which has exacerbated its
reluctance to be properly trained.

Tip-bearing as such is not a major problem. The yield would be fine if it
weren't for the wasps, who are peculiarly partial to a Discovery. :-(

http://www.btinternet.com/~treesandfruit/appl.htm


I want to do espaliered pears around our new vegetable plot - a 3-sided
boundary measuring @ 12 metres per side. There will not be walls or fencing
just the post supports, wires and the pear trees.

What I need to know is how many pear trees do I need for this and how many
of each variety/pollination group, should they be planted side by side or
interspersed? I'd like Doyenne de Comice which would need a Group 4
pollination partner. Which other varieties would you recommend?