My Espaliered Santa Rosa Plum and My Biggest Mistake (to date)

I had a plan, and in the 11th hour, I changed my mind. I was determined to espalier a Weeping Santa Rosa, but at the last minute I planted it traditionally. I regretted my decision for an entire year, until I transplanted the tree during the dormant season. I'm now on track to correcting my mistake, but I nearly took an axe and shovel to the tree.

[@danielnomnom2646]

Just got to the end of your video. I have got the following types of trees as espaliers. Apples, Pears, cherries, Japanese plums and plum crosses, European plums and one peach tree. Many of my trees are young and are not fully fruiting. This is what I've learned so far. Apples. Make sure you use a spur bearing variety and not tip bearers. Pears. They do fine but boy are they slow Cherries. They prefer fan shapes as opposed to specific forms. Either way works but they grow faster and you get more fruit out of a. Informal fan. Plums. Jplums don't like where I'm at in the Pacific northwest. They grow fine and they flower well but springtime conditions aren't great for bearing fruit. The plums grow well as a fan or as a formed shape. Euro plums. I'm switching over to these because my region isn't great for J plums. My trees are too young to say how that's going to work. But they seem to grow fine. Peaches. I have one as a informal fan, you cant really do forms with them. It is a pain to keep new wood for it to fruit on. Last year was the first year I got fruit from it.

[@fletcherfarm]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Tip bearing vs spur bearing -- I'll need to look into that more. One apple for sure sends off spurs. The second one I'm now having doubts about!

[@danielnomnom2646]

You can go to town doing plums as an espalier. Don't worry about what is considered "propper" I've got the following espalier plums. Flavor grenade, Nadia cherry/plum, elephant heart plum, Sweet treat pluery, methley and Satsuma.

[@fletcherfarm]

I appreciate the reassuring comments. There's not a lot of info out there about espaliered plums!

[@danielnomnom2646]

@Fletcher Farm That was the same issue I was having. All the print sources said apples and pears were fine, but I found almost nothing about plums. So I just went ahead and did it anyways.

[@vijayawasti1496]

Sir, Wonderful. Max. Summer temperature in your precise location please?

[@fletcherfarm]

We're in a Mediterranean climate, with a high of 90F/32C in the summer, but mostly in the mid 70s/22C

[@jakklump]

Pronounced; ES-paul-YAY.

[@fletcherfarm]

I think I say it differently in each video 🤷