Before and After Pruning Espalier - Greenspire Linden Trees - Dormant Pruning - March 2025

The two Greenspire Linden Trees in our backyard that are trained into a horizontal cordon espalier are one of my garden success stories.  I planted them back in 2017 and over the years, they've filled out with (now) four distinct sets of branches in the espalier.  

I showed these trees in their naked form six weeks ago (early January) in this post about the Green Velvet Boxwoods that are planted at their feet.  The four "levels" are clear, but the top has gone totally wild.  

Here's a post from late December that shows the top-growth on both of the Lindens. 

I've been pretty light-touch on pruning these the past few seasons; mostly shortening branches and taking off tips vs. hard-pruning limbs right off.   But, the 'wild top' of this thing is calling for a more heavy-hand with pruning.  I busted out the lopers and my hand pruners and started to go at them.

Below, you can see both trees.  The tree on the left has just about one-foot of the top cleared-out.  I pruned them back to about four-to-six-inches. 

I removed the training posts in Spring of 2023, so this will mark two years since the posts and wires have been removed.    This post from March 2023 shows the 'wild top' being pruned off.  Those branches were thinner than the ones we're facing now.  Naturally.  

Using the lopers, I clipped back ALL of the branches - including some thick leader-ish branches (apical meristems) and water spouts.  Below is the 'after' photo showing the Lindens with a VERY HARD PRUNE.

I'm holding my breath on this - because I really pushed it with the amount of pruning.  *Fingers crossed*.