World Espalier Fruit Days 2025

On Saturday 1 March 2025 and Saturday 13 September 2025 (Open Monument Day), the Wereldleifruitdagen (World Espalier Fruit Days) will take place for the first time. Gardens across The Netherlands will be open to show off the beautiful shapes of espalier fruit and provide information about the centuries-old traditional technique of espalier pruning.

The idea for World Espalier Days originated in France and is intended to introduce a wide audience to espalier fruit trees. Het Gilde van Tuinbazen (The Guild of Garden Masters) has taken the initiative to organise the World Espalier Days in The Netherlands as well.

Espalier fruit

The traditional technique of growing and pruning espalier fruit originated in France at the beginning of the seventeenth century and was soon introduced in The Netherlands in (vegetable) gardens at castles and country estates. Fruit trees such as peaches, apricots, morello cherries and hand pears were trained in the shape of fans against walls and wooden fences (espaliers). Placing them against walls gave the fruit the protection and warmth it needed to ripen and resulted in better quality fruit. Fruit trees were also pruned into free-standing shapes. Dwarf apple trees, known as ‘naantjes’ (a corruption of the French arbres nains), were particularly popular.

With the invention of pruning shears in the nineteenth century, more complex pruning forms emerged: against walls (espaliers), freestanding along wires (contre-espaliers) and freestanding in three-dimensional form.

Both seventeenth-century and nineteenth-century pruning forms can be found in various locations in The Netherlands, mostly in the gardens of castles and historic country estates, such as Dekema State, Huis te Manpad country estate, Middachten Castle and palace Het Loo.