Pleaching

Pleaching is the art of training trees into a raised hedge or to form a quincunx. Commonly, deciduous trees are planted in lines, then shaped to form a flat plane above the ground level. Branches are woven together, their bark wounded at the joins and bound together. They will grow together, due to a natural phenomenon called inosculation, a process similar to grafting.

History

In late medieval gardens through to the early eighteenth century, shaded walks and pleached allées were a familiar feature in European gardens, though not much in the American colonies, where labor-intensive refinements have never been features of gardening: "Because of the time needed in caring for pleached allees," Donald Wyman noted, [ "Wyman's Gardening Encyclopedia" 1971: "Pleach".] "they are but infrequently seen in American gardens, but are frequently observed in Europe."

After the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the technique withdrew to the kitchen garden, and the word dropped out of English usage, until Sir Walter Scott reintroduced it for local colour, in "The Fortunes of Nigel" (1822). ["The Fortunes of Nigel", ch. x, noted by Paul Roberts, 'Sir Walter Scott's Contributions to the English Vocabulary" "PMLA" 68.1 (March 1953, pp. 189-210) p 196.] After the middle of the nineteenth century, English landowners were once again planting avenues, often shading the sweeping curves of a drive, but sometimes straight allées of pleached limes, as Rowland Egerton's at Arley Hall, Cheshire, which survive in splendidly controlled form. [Charles Foster, "The History of the Gardens at Arley Hall, Cheshire" "Garden History" 24.2 (Winter 1996), pp. 255-271. p 265 and 266:fig 10.] In "Much Ado About Nothing", Antonio reports (I.ii.8ff) that the Prince and Count Claudio were "walking in a thick pleached alley in my orchard." A modern version of such free-standing pleached fruit trees is sometimes called a "Belgian fence": young fruit trees pruned to four or six wide Y-shaped crotches, in the candelabra-form espalier called a "palmette verrier", are planted at close intervals, about two metres apart, and their branches are bound together to makes a diagonal lattice, [ [Eleanor Perenyi, "Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden" (New York) 1981 pp 24-25.] a regimen of severe seasonal pruning; lashing of young growth to straight sticks and binding the joints repeat the pattern.

Smooth-barked trees such as limewood or linden trees, or hornbeams were most often used in pleaching. A sunken parterre surrounded on three sides by pleached allées of laburnum is a feature of the Queen's Garden, Kew, laid out in 1969 to complement the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch architecture of Kew Palace. [Quarterly Newsletter (Garden History Society) No. 10 (Summer 1969), pp. 8-10.] A pleached hornbeam hedge about three meters high is a feature of the replanted town garden at Rubens House, Antwerp, recreated from Rubens' painting "The Walk in the Garden" and from seventeenth-century engravings. [Anne Kendal, "The Garden of Rubens House, Antwerp"Garden History" 5.2 (Summer 1977, pp 27-29), p.28.]

In the gardens of André Le Nôtre and his followers, pleaching kept the vistas of straight rides through woodland cleanly bordered. At Studley Royal, Yorkshire, the avenues began to be pleached once again, as an experiment in restoration, in 1972. [Ken Lemmon, "Restoration Work at Studley Royal" "Garden History" 1.1 (September 1972, pp. 22-23) p. 22.]

ee also

*Espalier
*Topiary
*Arborsculpture
*Fab Tree Hab: Home Design with Pleaching

Notes

References

*"Time-Life Encyclopedia of Gardening: Pruning and Grafting"

External links

* [http://www.orchardsedge.com/article.jsp?article=pleaching.jsp Orchard's Edge - The Pleaching Company]
* [http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/good_wood/pleachng.htm PLEACHING by Mark Primack From The NSW Good Wood Guide]
* [http://www.archinode.com/bienal.html House made by Pleaching: Fab Tree Hab]
* [http://invivo-design.com/objects-bench.htm Bench Made By Pleaching by Invivo Design]
* [http://www.arborsmith.com Arborsculpture] the history, world tour, and current tree work