Milestone: Espalier Training Posts Removed - April 2023

Five and a half years.  That's how long the three posts have been installed in our backyard as a training device for the pair of Greenspire Linden trees that have been pruned in an horizontal cordon espalier.  This past weekend, I disconnected all of the wire and pulled the three posts down.  I put the posts in the ground in September of 2017 - look how NEW everything looks here.  

Over the years, I've worked these trees to be a four-level espalier and it had matured (enough) to no-longer require the heavy-hand of a post and wire system.  See below for the pre-removal state:

 And....below...are the trees with the posts and wires removed.  Feels VERY DIFFERENT over there (to me, at least) now.

The top row of the cordon is thick and strong and vibrant.  Each layer down gets thinner, but the bottom layer has finally reached the fully-mature length.  I'll work to keep that bottom row horizontal with a bamboo pole.  

#9 on my 2023 to-do list was to 'keep working the espalier' including taking down this system.  Feel pretty good on that item - and it still April.  

The removal of the frames also up open the ability to put in that formal planting of boxwoods that I talked about here.