Aberglasney’s Belgian fence is a thing of beauty, inspiring Non Morris with its exquisitely trained lattice of branches, which drip with an abundance of fruit
If perhaps it snows this Christmas, and if perhaps, you had decided five years ago to plant a row of maiden apple trees two feet apart against the wall of your house, (I am imagining Kentish white clapboard or honeyed Oxfordshire stone…), and if you had firmly wired the wall, immediately cut the trees to about 45cm above two buds, and trained the resultant branches at 45° to form Y-shapes, you would be in for a particularly elegant treat this December. As they grew, the branches would have crossed over to create a super-productive lattice. Snowfall would softly celebrate the repeated rhythms of the diamond pattern, but even if the snow failed to arrive, the crisp winter outlines of a Belgian fence would be a pleasure to behold and stand as a handsome testament to the way you garden.
On a filthy day in March, our wet-weather gear shiny with rain, I find myself talking excitedly with conservation ecologist Robbie Blackhall-Miles about my favourite Belgian fence at Aberglasney Gardens in Carmarthenshire. Robbie was taking me (every so often literally lifting me by my braces over hurtling water) to find the native purple saxifrage that emerges on the slopes of Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park just as the snow melts at the spring equinox. Robbie has been my guide to the fragile wild mountain plant community of North Wales for a few years now, and we have spent ambitious wind-swept days together. So I was surprised to learn that he is just as smitten as I am by this particularly controlled way of gardening.
What excites him, I discover, is the way the dazzling stretch of Belgian fence a hundred miles due south is the ultimate blend of art and science. “A well trained tree reveals a deep understanding of the way plants grow – an espalier tree needs the science, but it needs the art too to produce something of beauty.”
The Belgian fence in the beautifully restored Elizabethan garden at Aberglasney tak
