[woolybear]

First of all I want to say a big hello from Cornwall.  I've just joined and My man and I are madly busy building/preparing our new kitchen garden.  I've just moved in with him, along with my hens, cats and dog! and he has a fabulous large garden in need of some hard graft and TLC... its going to be a busy year 

I have grown veggies for quite a number of years and I've lived at houses in the past that have had full sized fruit trees in them but I've never grown trained fruit trees and I'd love to.

There's a huge, south facing, elevated barn wall that forms the back perimeter to the garden and I think it would be the perfect spot to grow a whole variety of fruit trees and outdoor grape vines.  The question I have is; I have no restriction on height here so I was wondering if it is possible to just buy 'normal' fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry etc) and espalier train them or do they have to be specifically dwarf rootstock or minarette varieties.  On all the info I've read on pruning/training the first bud is at 12-18" from the ground though a google image search on 'espalier' shows apple trees(in Normandy) of standard branch height but just flat against a wall.

The main reason I'm asking is because i'd obviously rather pay £6-£20 per tree rather than £25-£50 per tree (it's the Yorkshire blood in me!!)

Many thanks

[Sid]

Hello woolybear, welcome

[mumofstig]

hello and welcome to the forum.

I'm moving your post to the 'grow your own' forum where you should get more replies for your question. 

There are maiden trees (for training) on the net on M106 rootstock(apple), for medium sized trees at prices within your range
Here for example http://www.blackmoor.co.uk/index.php?cPath=1&osCsid=qd8rrtrgnpkhc5985c9c1cgpg7
I would think these would be easier to train than the very tall growing ones.
I don't know much about rootstocks for other fruit though.

[gillie]

Have a look at this:
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=319