Espalier: Difference between revisions

The word ''espalier'' is French, and it comes from the Italian ''spalliera'', meaning “something to rest the shoulder (''spalla'') against.”<ref name=IFAS>{{Citation| first = Sydney Park | last = Brown | first2 = Thomas H.| last2 = Yeager| first3 = Robert J.| last3 = Black|title=Circular 627: Espaliers | date = September 2007|origyear=May 1985| pages = 7|page=1| place = Florida, USA| publisher = Department of Environmental Horticulture, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida | url = http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/MG/MG27300.pdf}}</ref> During the 17th Century, the word initially referred only to the actual [[trellis (architecture)|trellis]] or frame on which such a plant was trained to grow, but over time it has come to be used to describe both the practice and the plants themselves.<ref name="NCSU"/> The practice was popularly used in the [[Middle Ages]] in [[Europe]] to produce fruit inside the walls of a typical castle courtyard without interfering with the open space and to decorate solid walls by planting flattened trees near them. Vineyards have used the technique in the training of grapes for hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years.