Wow, that looks great! Please update in the late spring with what the house looks like covered over with leaves.

Remarkable for its extreme height. I assume most of the fruit is ladder-harvested and not allowed to drop to the ground.

The tree looks nice when it is in bloom and leafed out, I'll take a picture then. As far as the height and harvesting, that falls under lessons yet to be learned. So far it hasn't been too bad. My kids were laughing at your note because they are the ones sent up the tree, most of the fruit has been on lower and central so far, but your comment makes me realize that it will get harder as it continues to mature. This is the final height I'm going for, so with it being up against the house it has been easy to do the pruning with the ladder. At some point the tree will probably get too big. I put baffles underground when I planted them to try to redirect the roots away from the wall, but I think it will be a race between that and my wife redoing the house.

Prununing the roots near the wall because the rootstok is very strong.

Sorry my bad enghish

Very interesting... and timely... son and DIL are purchasing a property and espaliered fruit trees, along a property-line wall/fence look very promising. Would be interested in seeing photos of the progression if you have them - and any tips or links to good online articles would be appreciated.

So it turned out the tree is its own ladder. Sounds like fun--I climb around in my quince tree for hard-to-reach fruit.

Placido, thanks for the suggestion on root pruning. It would probably be good to do that every couple of years. I'll try it this weekend and see if I run into any big roots on the wall side.

Pittman. "The American Horticultural Society, Pruning & Training" by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce. It does a nice job of explaining the behavior of the trees and their response to pruning. And they lay it out for espaliers as well. Others may chime it with good books or sites as well. The key with espaliers (and I'm still learning, so anyone else can jump in), is being persistent with winter and summer prunings to keep it within the framework you want. It is hard to go backwards once it is out of structure. As the tree matures it starts to settle down into the structure and it gets easier. It reminds me of having a new dog and going through the puppy, active and old dog phases. There is an interesting book, Lorette style of pruning, translated by W.R Dykes. He developed a specific espalier technique that may or may not work for your area, but it is in depth on the thought process. It was written 100 years ago in french and then translated, so it can be difficult, but if your son or DIL likes that type of history it is interesting. If you google Lorette or modified Lorette style there are a lot of articles/videos. I've looked at a lot on line and I've learned more each time, but they are usually pretty shallow. However, it is amazing how much online information has grown in 10 years.

The roots near the wall if they are very strongs can broken your wall.

For a good production of pears you need a equilibrated parts roots versus aerial parts.

A equilibrated tree have less pests and insect atacs.

The exemple is the bonsai trees.