Espalier

Definition

Espalier refers to a garden structure that was used to support plants, particularly fruit trees. Visual evidence, such as the engraving of the College of Rhode Island [Fig. 1] and Rubens Peale’s painting of the Peale Museum in Philadelphia [Fig. 2], indicates that training trees against walls was practiced in America throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Written evidence also documents this practice, although these descriptions were often very brief. One must turn to treatises for detailed discussions of espaliers.

Treatises, particularly those from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, distinguished among at least three different types of espaliers. First, and most rare, was what Ephraim Chambers (1741) referred to as the British espalier: “rows of trees, planted regularly round the out-side of a garden, or plantation, for the general security thereof,” but notably, Chambers did not specify which type of tree. This form of barrier could be made of elm, lime, oak, or pine trees. For a shorter barrier, or the hedge espalier, Chambers recommended such trees as apple, holly, and laurel.

In the second form of espalier, trees (and possibly shrubs) were affixed and spread against a wall, while the third, closely related form featured trees and/or shrubs that were trained on a trellis or lattice to stand as an independent hedge-like unit. Philip Miller, in The Gardeners Dictionary (1754), referred to the latter form when he explained that the “most commonly received notion of Espaliers are hedges of Fruit-trees . . . trained up regularly to Lattice of Wood-work.” The walls, trellises, or lattices associated with the second and third forms provided the ideal shelter for nurturing “tender” or less hardy plants, and also established structures useful for training the growth of young plants (see Trellis).

If Miller’s claim about the most commonly received notion of espaliers was true of American usage (and it is likely that it was), then the discussions by eighteenth-century Americans of espaliers of fruit trees indicate that the trees were trained to trellises or lattices. They also indicate the possible appearance of fruit espaliers described by Thomas Hancock (1736) and Rev. Manasseh Cutler (1778), as well as those mentioned by George Washington (1785), who owned a copy of Miller’s book, and by an observer in 1800 of Adrian Valeck’s estate in Baltimore.

Despite the availability of European treatises that addressed both the idea of espaliers and built examples in America, Bernard M’Mahon (1806) asserted that “some people have not a sufficient idea of what is meant by espaliers.” M’Mahon’s definition—“hedges of fruit-trees . . . trained up regularly to a lattice or trellis of wood work, and . . . commonly arranged in a single row in the borders [and] . . . boundaries . . . of the kitchen-garden”—reiterates the concepts of previous treatise writers, particularly those of Miller. The fruit trees that M’Mahon referred to dominated nineteenth-century descriptions of espaliers, though in 1817 John Abercrombie argued that older fruit espaliers were unproductive and too formal in appearance.

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, espaliers also served to mark divisions in the garden and to screen workplaces. The mid-eighteenth-century plan of Rosewell, on the York River, Va., which reveals an alternating system of hedges and espaliers in the outlines of garden plots, illustrates the use of espaliers to enclose and separate garden divisions [Fig. 3]. Adrian Valeck also used the espalier feature as a border for the walks and squares of his garden.

To fulfill these spatial functions and to provide an environment conducive to growing, either trellises, lattice work, or rails were used to give support to trees. By the mid-nineteenth century, the term referred to this support material, as demonstrated by Noah Webster’s 1850 definition of “espalier,” which, unlike his 1828 version, included a secondary denotation as “a lattice-work of wood, on which to train fruit-trees and ornamental shrubs.”

The wide range of material used for espaliers and method of treatment was indicated in both Philip Miller’s The Gardeners Dictionary (1754) and J. C. Loudon’s An Encyclopaedia of Gardening (1826), which included specifications for simple wooden espaliers, framed wooden espalier rails, cast-iron espalier rails, horizontal espalier rails, and oblique espalier rails. A. J. Downing, in his 1847 description of the fruit garden at Wodenethe, noted that the espalier used there brought fruit to greater perfection. In lining the walks and providing a support structure for a single row of fruit trees, such an espalier matched the specifications of most nineteenth-century descriptions by American treatise writers and lexicographers.

-- Anne Helmreich

Texts

Common Usage

• Hancock, Thomas, 20 December 1736, describing the residence of Thomas Hancock on Beacon Hill, Boston, Mass. (quoted in Hedrick 1988: 49)

“If you have any Particular, Curious Things not of a high price will Beautifie a flower Garden, Send a Sample with the price or a catalogue of ’em; pray Send me a Catalogue of what Fruit you have that are Dwarf Trees and Espaliers.”

• Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 16 August 1778, describing a garden in Rhode Island (1987: 1:68–69)

“Went in the afternoon with a number of officers to view a garden near our quarters belonging to one Mr. Bowler—the finest by far I ever saw. It is laid out much in the form of my own, contains four acres, has a grand aisle in the middle, and is adorned in the front with beautiful carvings. Near the middle is an oval, surrounded with espaliers of fruit trees, in the center of which is a pedestal, on which is an armillary sphere, with an equatorial dial. . . . There are espaliers of fruit trees at each end of the garden, some curious flowering shrubs, and a pretty collection of fruit trees.”

• Washington, George, 14 March 1785, describing Mount Vernon, plantation of George Washington, Fairfax County, Va. (Jackson and Twohig, eds., 1978: 4:102)

“Planted the 9 young peach Trees which I brought from Mr. Cockburns in the No. Garden—viz.—4 on the South border of the second walk (two on each side of the middle walk)—2 in the border of the Walk leading from the Espalier hedge towards the other cross walk and 3 under the South wall of the Garden; that is two on the right as we enter the gate & one on the left. The other Peachtree to answer it on that side & the two on the West Walk, parrallel to the Walnut trees were taken from the nursery in the Garden.”

• Anonymous, 14 June 1800, describing in the Federal Gazette the estate of Adrian Valeck, Baltimore, Md. (quoted in Sarudy 1989: 136)

“A large garden in the highest state of cultivation, laid out in numerous and convenient walks and squares bordered with espaliers, on which . . . the greatest variety of fruit trees, the choicest fruits from the best nurseries in this country and Europe have been attentively and successfully cultivated.”

• Bryant, William Cullen, 25 August 1821, in a letter to his wife, Frances F. Bryant, describing the Vale, estate of Theodore Lyman, Waltham, Mass. (1975: 1:108)

“He took me to the seat of Mr. Lyman. . . . It is a perfect paradise. . . . A hard rolled walk, by the side of a brick wall, about ten feet in height and covered with peach and apricot espaliers which seemed to grow to it, like the creeping sumach to the bark of an elm.”

• Downing, A. J., May 1847, “The Fruit Garden at Wodenethe,” describing Wodenethe, residence of Henry Winthrop Sargent, Dutchess County, N.Y. (Horticulturist 1: 504)

“Our FRONTISPIECE gives a glimpse of this Vinery, at the termination of the main walk of the fruit-garden. This walk is 428 feet long, and is bordered with an espalier rail, upon which many of the choicest peaches, grapes, plums, etc., are trained—not from necessity or for greater protection, as in gardens farther north, for all those fruits ripen perfectly on common standards here, but to give an illustration of this more perfect kind of culture, and to obtain fruit of a larger size and higher color than standards usually produce.” [Fig. 4]