Pleached Trees with their elegant straight stems and distinctive square crowns are a regular feature in UK gardens. Half-standard Pleached Trees (not quite so tall as the standard Pleached) are probably less well-known. Let’s take a closer look at these versatile plants.
For many years Paramount Plants has been the go-to specialist nursery for evergreen screening in the UK. We’re always looking for new solutions for our customers who are looking to create an instant screen of green in their gardens. For whatever reason you need it – for screening out neighbours, disguising unsightly views, camouflaging boring fences or walls or just to get a real sense of privacy when you are occupying this special space.
Half Standard Pleached Trees are another fabulous example of how to green your garden boundaries creatively. These 3 varieties are all hardy evergreen trees that happily lend themselves to training in this manner, creating stunning vertical green screens whilst at the same time taking up very little growing space – essential for smaller gardens or where space is of the essence. Half-standard Pleached trees (as opposed to standard pleached trees) have a shorter clear stem of up to 120 cm until the start of the crown. These shorter pleached trees are ideal for providing additional privacy screening for lower walls or hedges.
Eleagnus x Ebbingei Half Standard Pleached Trees grown on a bamboo frame – 2 metres high (without pot)
Pleached, espalier, frame-trained…
These are all terms for training a tree to occupy a lateral space, essentially a strong central stem is grown upwards and allowed to grow ‘out’ when the stem of the tree has reached a certain height. This results in a clear stem tree – also sometimes referred to as stilted hedging. The bamboo frame allows the tree to be trained to ‘fill’ the frame creating a rectangle of greenery. This method of training creates a screen that only occupies the width of the stem in terms of lateral space and yet providing an instant evergreen screen.
Ilex Crenata Green Hedge Half Standard Pleached Trees – 2 metres high (without pot)
Ilex Crenata Green Hedging is commonly known as Japanese Holly, it closely resembles Box Hedging and is used for many of the same uses, ie Topiary, Hedging, Garden bonsai and cloud trees. It is a fabulous plant for training into all kinds of shapes. Here the Half Standard screen has been trained onto a bamboo frame and with a stem height of 80cm – these are perfect for placing against a wall as an espalier, or for extending the screening directly above a small wall or fence. Extremely versatile, very hardy and easy to grow and keep in shape.
Photinia Pink Marble Half Standard Pleached Trees – 1.9 M tall, clear stem trunk 80 cm and frame 110 x 110 cm
Photinia is a real customer favourite in both tree and shrub form. This half standard Photinia Pink Marble Pleached promises to be a winner. Not only hardy, easy to grow and evergreen, Photinia Pink Marble produces dazzling red new shoots in Spring which gradually turn green and ivory white as the leaves mature – it’s quite a show! This variegated half standard pleached tree can be grown as an espalier against a wall or will look beautiful as a screen above a low fence.
Paramount has a huge collection of full standard trees for above fence screening, large mature pleached trees for creating a higher screening, we also specialist in mature trees for creating instant high hedging for a complete screening solution.
Our expert team at Paramount Plants are on-hand if you need any advice – please do get in touch!
Paramount Plants & Gardens Ltd
131 Theobalds Park Road
Crews Hill
Enfield
London EN2 9BH
Tel: +44 (0)20 8367 8809
[email protected]
