Minarette Fruit Trees

I searched the archive and there were a few few people mentioning they were trying these, just wondered how they were doing?

We have a gap in the garden that would suit something a couple of feet wide and I'm quite tempted by a pear or cherry minarette - they had cherry 'stella' in the local garden centre today.

I can't find any pictures of what they look like after a couple of years. All the online shops have the same photo that look like a poles with fake apples tied to. Do they really stay narrow to quite that extreme?

I had one in my last house, a conference pear.  It was fabulous. 

 I think the idea is to keep them small but I let the leader grow and it went up about 6ft, along a rope about 8ft then over an arch.  I pruned everything back each year so that all it had were spurs all along the main stem.  It looked wonderful in blossom and was laden with pears every year.

I have standard pear trees now but they dont fruit like that one.  Give it ago

I was reading about Minarette Fruit Trees but not sure what they are.  I have seen when visiting National Trust Gardens and places Apple Trees that are grown on a frame so they are not too high but are trained along poles or wires I think so they have just a few branches.

Can anyone advise if this is hard to do and can you train any varieties that way or do they have to be a special kind.  I would like to do this on my allotment so that the trees do not get to big or is it better to just keep a small bush variety and keep it pruned well.

I am a complete novice when it comes to fruit trees so any advice welcome

It might be worth double checking your terminology before you start ordering anything.

Minarette trees are single column trees, whereas the ones which have horizontal branches on wires are cordon trees.  The low-ones are often called step-over cordons.

I suspect that part of the trick of either is the rootstock.

Thanks Kitty will have a look now. Am I right in thinking autumn would be okay to plant them?