I don't do any espalier, but grow a lot of apples, peaches, etc. However, I
passed your email on to a fellow clubmember (Midfex), who does do that. He had
trouble growing the peaches, as a fan, which is the only way he feels you can do
the espalier with peaches. The problem was keeping the structure in subsequent
years while still producing fruit. He was only able to get fruit in those cases
by allowing a rather unkempt growth, producing a rather unattractive tree.

Hope this helps,

Sherwin D.

flimbin wrote:

Just received an apple tree which I want to train as a cordon. However,
it is about 5 ft long and there are lots of branches up the length of
the tree. Do I just cut all these back to leave just the central stem?

I also received a peach tree which I want to train as a fan. This is
also about 5 feet long with side branches all the way up as well . The
lowest 2 branches are on opposite sides at about the right height, but
thy are weak looking. Should I still prune just above these 2
branches?

Incidentally, I also got a cherry tree, but I dont have any worries
with this.

--
flimbin