Bush, cordon, espalier or fan — which fruit tree form should I buy?

Six trained forms compared on ground space, wall space, pruning commitment and which fruits each one suits — including why plums and cherries are never cordons.

Difficulty: beginner
Time: 20 min
Read: 5 min

Short answer

A bush tree is the default: a short trunk, an open head, picked from the ground, 3–4m of space. If you have a wall or fence but no ground, use a cordon for many apple varieties in a line, an espalier for one tree spread flat, or a fan for plums and cherries. A stepover edges a path. Trained forms crop earlier but need pruning every summer, without exception.

Form is a separate choice from rootstock, and the two have to agree: a trained form needs a rootstock that will not fight the training. It is also the choice that decides how much annual work you have signed up for. A bush tree can be left alone for a year with no great harm. A cordon left alone for a year turns into a mess that takes two years to sort out.

The trained forms a fruit tree can be bought or grown as

Step by step

Start with what you have: ground, wall, or a boundary line.Ground space with sun points to a bush or half-standard. A sunny wall or fence points to an espalier or fan. A run of post-and-wire, or the sunny side of a path, points to cordons or stepovers.
Choose a bush if you want the least work.A clear leg of 60–75cm and an open goblet head. Everything within reach from the ground on MM106 or M26, one winter prune, and it forgives neglect. This is the right answer for most gardens.
Choose a half-standard only if you need to walk or mow underneath.A 1.2–1.4m clear trunk. It looks like a traditional orchard tree and needs a bigger rootstock, so it takes longer to crop and more of it is out of reach.
Choose cordons to fit several varieties into a short run.Single stems planted at 45 degrees, 75cm apart on three wires. Six varieties in four and a half metres, cropping in the second or third year, solving pollination by having neighbours. Apples and pears only, on M9 or M26, or Quince C.
Choose an espalier for a wall you want covered and cropping.A central stem with horizontal tiers about 45cm apart, three or four tiers, 3–4m wide. Formal, productive, and the best use there is of a sunny house wall. Takes four or five years to build.
Choose a fan for stone fruit against a wall.Plums, gages, damsons, cherries, apricots and peaches fruit poorly as cordons and espaliers because they do not spur up in the same way. A fan gives them wall warmth and shelter, which in most of the UK is what makes apricots and peaches possible at all.
Choose a stepover for an edging.A single horizontal arm about 45cm above the ground on M27, running along a path or the edge of a vegetable bed. Very productive for the space, entirely ornamental in winter, and needs summer pruning like any trained tree.
Be honest about the summer pruning commitment.Every restricted form — cordon, espalier, fan, stepover — is kept restricted by pruning in August, every single year. Miss two years and you have a shrub on a wall. If that is not realistic, buy a bush.

Tips

A north-facing wall is not wasted: acid cherries such as Morello, and cooking apples, crop acceptably on one. Sweet cherries, peaches and apricots need south or west.
You can buy trained forms part-formed — a two- or three-tier espalier costs considerably more than a maiden but saves three years and a lot of getting it wrong.
A maiden (one-year-old unbranched tree, sometimes called a whip) is the cheapest way in and the only sensible starting point if you want to train the form yourself.
Wires for cordons and espaliers go up before the tree goes in. Retro-fitting them around an established tree is miserable work.

Common mistakes

Buying a cordon or espalier plum or cherry — Stone fruit does not form fruiting spurs along a restricted stem the way apples and pears do, and it cannot be pruned in winter to control it. It will grow away from the shape and disappoint. Fans are the trained form for stone fruit.
Training a vigorous rootstock into a restricted form — An espalier on MM111 or M25 spends its life trying to escape and needs cutting three times a summer. Restricted forms want M9, M26 or Quince C.
Fixing wires flat against a wall — The tree needs an air gap. Use vine eyes that hold the wire 5–8cm off the brickwork, or the growth is squashed against damp masonry and mildew follows.

Alternatives

Family tree: Two or three compatible varieties grafted onto one rootstock in a bush form. Solves pollination and space at once. The vigour of the branches is rarely equal, so the strongest variety needs pruning back harder to stop it taking over.
Minarette or ballerina columnar trees: Sold as narrow columns for pots and small gardens. Ballerina types are genuinely columnar; many 'minarette' trees are simply ordinary varieties on dwarfing stock that must be summer-pruned to stay narrow.
Step-in fruit hedge: Cordons or an espalier used as a productive boundary instead of an ornamental hedge. More work than privet, far more return, and it needs a permanent wire structure.

Questions people ask

How long does an espalier take to train?

One tier per year, so a three-tier espalier from a maiden takes three to four years to build and starts cropping on the lower tiers while the upper ones are still forming.

Do cordons crop less than a bush tree?

Per tree, much less. Per metre of ground, more — which is the point. Six cordons in four and a half metres out-crop one bush tree in the same run and give you six varieties ripening across three months.

Can I train an existing bush tree into an espalier?

No. Trained forms are built from a young unbranched tree by choosing which buds become which arms. An established bush has already committed its structure.