Greenspire Linden Horizontal Cordon Espalier - Spring 2022

Earlier this week, I showed off the new haircut that I gave to the pair of crabapple trees in our sideyard and talked about my plan for shaping them into a Palmette Verrier form along the side of our house. I thought it would be wise to document my other (or...as the kids say:  OG) espalier:  the pair of Greenspire Linden trees that are shaped into a four-tiered horizontal cordon.

The last time that I showed these trees was in early April when they had NO leaves on them.  I mentioned last week that they had broken bud (very pretty buds, btw) and were leaf'ing out.  

What do they look like this week?  Really lovely set of espalier - with four tiers.  Well...almost four.  See below:

On the left, the bottom tier is done on the left, but needs some help going right.  

On the tree on the right, the bottom tier needs some help extending both ways.  

I'm thinking those will get done this growing season.  

#6 on my 2022 to-do list was to continue to work the Lindens (these have been pruned once) and think about removing the frame.  (that's on my Summer work list).  

I still think these need a set of evergreen shrubs at their feet (like this) to 'formalize' this area a bit. 

These were planted in 2017, so they've had ('17, '18, '19, '20, '21) five growing seasons going on their sixth.