Question: I have a large shrub that I’d like to train as an espalier. How would I go about doing that?

Answer: You might not want to bother. Since a plant does most of its growing at the tips of its branches, it’s usually easier to get an espalier to fill in at its base if you complete it one level at a time from the ground up. It’s very hard to go back into an older, overgrown plant and retrofit it into a two-dimension form.