Artistic Trees

It’s art. It’s architecture. And it could be apples … or pears, or a variety of other fruit and ornamental trees. It’s called espalier (es-PAL-yay), and reintroducing the horticultural art form into the American landscape is what Peter Thevenot, and the “small band of devoted people” at River Road Farms in Decatur, Tennessee, have been working toward for the past 25 years. 

Espalier is a centuries-old method of training trees to grow flat against an exterior wall or other surface in ornamental designs that are both beautiful and practical. In addition to beautifying landscapes, these trees may provide natural barriers, as well as producing fresh fruit that’s easily accessible. And, according to Thevenot, the benefits of espalier are significant.

“[Espalier] feeds your eyes and your soul, but also feeds your stomach,” he says. 

River Road Farms is the premier espalier nursery in the country, and Thevenot, along with a small team that has been with him almost since the beginning, are artists and masters of the trade. In fact, their “hand-crafted” trees are part of the most prestigious gardens in the country, such as Biltmore Estate, Callaway Gardens, Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Denver Botanic Garden and George Washington’s Mount Vernon, for which the nursery is currently custom growing a variety of trees, and where Thevenot first discovered espalier nearly three decades ago. 

“It just was so magical that there were trees that didn’t look like trees,” he says. “They were architectural elements. They were trained in various shapes and sizes and forms, and it just struck me.” 

And strike him, it did. In fact, it changed his life. At age 50, Thevenot, who had been “a suit and tie man” for years, left the stress of the business world behind to begin a new life among the trees. But his transition was not only about simplifying life, it was about the trees themselves. 

“I had to get away from the coarseness of life,” he says. “I was looking for peace and I found it growing plants and being around people who grow things and organize them for beautiful landscapes and pick fruit from them and eat them!” 

Thevenot says espalier is something “the gardening industry cast aside hundreds of years ago,” and he wanted to change that. After extensive study of espalier, he opened River Road Farms in 1992. “I wanted to let people know they could have living art in their gardens,” he says. 

And while it may not seem practical to train a tree in the espalier form—it takes anywhere from 3 to 5 years to train a tree into a mature espalier—the reward is something else altogether. 

“The thing with espalier is that it puts everything at arm’s length,” Thevenot says. “You take a traditional [fruit] tree, and the home gardener runs into more and more of the fruit being produced at the top of the tree which is nearest the sun. So that’s where they have to get into ladders and all types of things just to take care of and even harvest the fruit. With the espalier tree, it’s something that can be put in a courtyard, in a home garden or in the little space that people have in condos. It’ll fit anywhere simply because you’re going to keep it the size you want it to be, which keeps it at arm’s length.”

Espaliered trees will have a lifespan of around 100 years, or twice that of traditional trees. And Thevenot says the espalier tree will produce more fruit per foot. “That makes it practical for everybody,” he says. “Plus, they’re beautiful.”

Beauty is, perhaps, the greatest appeal. “It’s nice to be able to go out there and pick something that’s fresh and put it in your mouth and eat it, and know that your tree grew it, [but] I’ve got ornamental trees, as well as fruiting trees, in my landscape because personally it was the form, it was the architectural elements of the trees … that initially captured my interest.”

The trees at River Road Farms are trained in the classic European styles, such as the horizontal cordon, candelabra, fan and Belgian fence. But they can also be trained into designs to fit the individual’s taste. 

“There’s a lot of forms, a lot of shapes, that you could train a tree into. It’s just a matter of drawing out what you want it to look like after you’re through, and in most instances, you can train a tree to do exactly that,” he says.

Because the folks at River Road specialize in espalier, you don’t have to wait years to add this element to your landscape. They deliver fully-trained trees to most parts of the country, and are happy to provide information and assistance to anyone—the home gardener, the landscape architect, or horticulturists at the most prestigious public gardens. They keep an inventory of between 2800 and 3200 trees, at varying stages of growth, and stock a variety of trees including: Kieffer Pear, MoonGlow Pear, Gala Apple, Granny Smith Apple, Forest Pansy Redbud and ‘Sugar Tip’ Althea. For a full listing and more information, contact River Road Farms at 1.800.297.1435, or visit espaliertrees.com.