I was too lazy to Photoshop this better.

This is a seedling with about a 12 foot branch that has leaned over so the about 8 feet of the branch is horizontal. Each node is now sending up a vertical shoot. Acting very much like the trees that Ken Love took pix of in Japan.

That is really nice, Dave! I want to try a few trees like that here. It is a little colder where I live but I think I will try to bend the long shoots down and cover them in the winter.

Beautiful execution.

very nice Dave.  Thanks for showing the progression...pretty cool

thats great idea to get the branches and fruit of many

very nice

but why your main branch not bent like other branches

very cool dave. thanks for the pics

Thanks for the compliments. It's been a fun project so far, but I've got a long way to go.

Fantastic job , I hope my in ground Florea survives to look like that eventually.
When you cut back in the Spring do you plan on leaving more buds on the weaker growing verticals ?

Looks good. Similar to the Japanese techinique. My only concern is how close it is to the wall. It will cause problems soon. Good luck!

 WOW!  How great! Good idea, Dave.  Fredfig

Very nice Job Dave.

Between those Japanese pics I've been looking at recently and seeing the nice job you've done, I am now inspired to give this a try myself.

I could see this working for us even with cold sensitive varieties in zone 5 or 6. I can see myself growing them out in the open like this and just covering them with soil, leaves, or mulch in the fall as winter protection. Then uncover them in the spring.

Seems it would be simple enough to train them to grow no more than 12" from the ground and then just mound the "protection" up over them in late fall. I look forward to giving it a try this next season.

Thanks for posting those great progress pics Dave. 

Drivewayfarmer, I plan on cutting all the verticals back to 1 or 2 nodes, leaving a vertical stub no more than a few inches tall. I don't know yet if I will change the plan for the smaller vertical limbs. 

Dave,

Fig trees grown in that Japanese style develop very thick trunks even faster than normal due to all that pruning of the branches. Yours will probably be hitting the wall within 3-4 years. Here is a picture of a local Celeste tree with a single trunk. The trunk is abt 22" in diameter.

Oh boy, looks like I'm in trouble... 

No need to panic though. You can always move it before it gets much bigger. For your zone, you could probably do that anytime this winter. Or (maybe more ideally) you could wait until a couple of weeks before bud break and move it then.

If you don't have alot of options as to where you can move it to, I imagine you could leave it by the shed and just move it out a few feet. You still may have to keep it pruned back away from the shed in a few years though. 

If you do want to move it, I'm sure you wouldn't want to leave it until it becomes a monster! So..... :-/

One other thing. If you do move it, you're required ;) to take pics of the process and post them here.

We look forward to future progress pics of this one Dave.

Thank you for posting this Dave, and thanks to the rest of you for all of the comments as well.

We've been in the new house for nearly four months now and are starting over.   I have wiped out most of the existing landscaping, getting ready for figs in the spring. This topic is giving me lots of good ideas.

Cool looking Dave. Thanks for the idea, I know now what I am going to do to hide the back fence.

Here's an update on my fig espalier against the corner of my shed. I pruned it back very heavily on March 15, but did not move/transplant it farther away from the corner of the shed because of lack of free time. When I pruned I left 1 or 2 nodes on each vertical depending on the size of the growth. Approximately 100 days later the espalier is getting big again, each growth is almost 7 feet tall. I accidentally broke off 2 growths when they were young and green. One of them did not grow back and is now just a stump. The other grew back but was bare for a while and the tree got badly sunburned in that location. I also had to include a pic or two with my ferocious guard dog Scout. She may not look like much, but she's tenacious. I'm pretty much flying by the seat of my pants with this project, but I'm also loving every minute of it.

Shameless plug...I posted a few more pictures with a more thorough overall description of the tree on my blog. Check it out if you are interested. http://point09acres.blogspot.com/2012/06/espalier-fig-iv.html

Hope everybody's fig growing seasons are off to a great start. I'm loving all the breba pics and main crop pics from the really warm growers.

Dave, ever since I saw you first post about this tree, I been think of doing something similar. Thanks for posting a follow up. It looks great, just like I hoped it would. Now to plan for mine.

"gene"

Thanks, Gene.

What variety do you think you'll plant? Mine is a Celeste, but I wish I planted something different. Don't get me wrong, I love a dead ripe Celeste but it would be fun to have a more unique
variety for my espalier. At least Celeste is fairly cold-hardy and grows quickly...two reasons why I planted
it! Good luck, looking forward to hearing what you decide to do.

Dave

For some reason, I've missed all these posts until just now. Fantastic job!! Perfect espalier!! Thanks for the pics.

Thanks for posting the progress. I really enjoyed it. :) 

Very nice!!

I think I'll be using O'Rourke and Improved Celeste. I have a new area I just opened up behind my garden against a privacy fence. I'll plant the trees there in the fall.
"gene"