My mother, in all her wisdom, once sent me a wooden garden stake that said, “I tried… but it died”, when I take somewhat drastic measures to try to save something in the garden, I always bear that in mind.
Our pomegranate came with the house when we moved in the 70s and has provided us with a great crop every year and the best jelly. It always just grew like a weed each year and I left it to its own devices with growth above the garage roof height so that it provided some roof shade in the summer's heat, only pruning to keep the path clear and to minimize debris in the gutters.
Times change, a fence and the neighbor's major plumbing work was one blow to the roots too many and the pomegranate lost all its vigor. Combine that with this piece of roof being prime solar panel real estate it looked as though it was time to say goodbye. The dead wood, weak and what appeared to be dying top growth was surgically removed with a chain saw to leave just a tall stump that I would figure out what to do with later. Not a practice conducive to prolonging life.
The bare and barren stump sat quietly through a winter then pushed shoots in many places, should I whack it back and remove the stump? Or should I acknowledge Mother Nature's tenacity and see if I could have both pomegranates and solar roof space?
Espalier seemed to be a solution, but it's a process that is usually begun with a young shrub or tree and then each year the growth is guided and encouraged until maturity. This seemed to be asking a lot of what used to be a proud and vigorous mature tree.
The first year, I selected some of the new shoots to become the future espalier structure, pruning out other multiple shoots so that those that remained could strengthen and become dominant. I also considered I had to leave enough foliage to support the hopefully improved and healthy tree. Some thrived others did not, so again I pruned to the strength of the growth. I gently bent the shoots to roughly where I would like them to extend then sat back and waited for another year's growth. This year, I was able to choose and form the new ‘limbs' into a somewhat idiosyncratic espalier along the fence. Not necessarily something that would win a prize for form in a garden show but hopefully they will thrive and will continue to provide us with those beautiful jewels of pomegranate seeds for the best jelly.
Pomegranates are notoriously resilient, growing like weeds, this would not have worked with say a peach or a pear. Now I wait in great anticipation for the first flowers, and if there's enough fruit, I'm sure this year's jelly will taste the best we've ever had!