espaliered-asian-pear-2011

AS PART OF Garden Conservancy Open Day at Margaret Roach’s Copake Falls, NY, garden–including a plant sale by Broken Arrow Nursery–guest expert and garden writer Lee Reich will be doing a morning lecture on fruit espaliers.

Signed copies of Lee’s latest book, “The Ever Curious Gardener,” will be for sale at both events.

The talk is a ticketed event and space is limited. The morning espalier talk will take place within a few minutes’ walk of Margaret’s garden, at The Church of St. John in the Wilderness in “downtown” Copake Falls.

10 am-4 pm: open garden and plant sale

Directions at this link. Want something in particular from Broken Arrow? They can bring along custom pre-orders just for you; browse their website or call 203-288-1026 for assistance.

11 am-12:15 pm: lecture on the science, art, fun and tasty fruit of espalier, with lee reich

Espalier is the training of a tree to an orderly, often two-dimensional form; the tracery of the branches themselves adds to the decorative value of the plant. The tree might be free-standing, decorating a wall or fence, or even creating the fence itself! Applied to fruit trees, espalier results in high yields of high quality fruit. This presentation will touch on the theory and the practice behind the pruning and orienting of branches to create an espalier, which fruit plants work best, and the branch pruning and orienting techniques that create and maintain espaliers that look good and yield especially delectable fruit.

This lecture will take place at Church of St. John in the Wilderness, on Route 344 in Copake Falls, just down the road from Margaret’s garden.

about lee

For more on Lee: Read some of Margaret and Lee’s past interviews at this link.)

The hamlet of Copake Falls, NY, celebrates Copake Falls Day that day, and all the other events, from a 5K morning cross-country race to late-afternoon jazz vespers in a historic church, are listed here.