Pleaching
Pleaching or plashing is a technique of interweaving living and dead branches through a
History
Pleaching or plashing (an early synonym)[4] was common in gardens from late medieval times to the early eighteenth century, to create shaded paths, or to create a living fence out of trees or shrubs. [1] Commonly deciduous trees were used by planting them in lines. The canopy was pruned into flat planes with the lower branches removed leaving the stems below clear. [1] This craft had been developed by European farmers who used it to make their hedge rows more secure.[5] Julius Caesar (circa 60 B.C.) states that the Gallic tribe of Nervii used plashing to create defensive barriers against cavalry.[6]
In
In garden design, the same technique has produced elaborate structures,
After the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the technique withdrew to the kitchen garden, and the word dropped out of English usage, until
In Much Ado About Nothing, Antonio reports (I.ii.8ff) that the Prince and Count Claudio were "walking in a thick pleached alley in my orchard." A modern version of such free-standing pleached fruit trees is sometimes called a "Belgian fence": young fruit trees pruned to four or six wide Y-shaped crotches, in the candelabra-form espalier called a palmette verrier, are planted at close intervals, about two metres apart, and their branches are bound together to makes a diagonal lattice,[13] a regimen of severe seasonal pruning; lashing of young growth to straight sticks and binding the joints repeat the pattern.
Smooth-barked trees such as
In the gardens of
Pleaching in art
The word pleach has been used to describe the art form of tree shaping[17] or one of the techniques of tree shaping.[18][19] Pleaching describes the weaving of branches into houses, furniture, ladders and many other 3D art forms. Examples of living pleached structures include Richard Reames's red alder bench and Axel Erlandson's sycamore tower.[5] There are also conceptual ideas like the Fab Tree Hab.[20]
See also
Notes
- ^ ISBN 978-3-319-11960-1.
- ^ The Complete Guide to Pruning and Training Plants, Joyce and Brickell, 1992, page 106, Simon and Schuster
- ISBN 0-207-15007-9.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location (link - ^ Oxford English Dictionary
- ^ ISBN 1-929709-03-X.
- ^
Caesar, Julius (1955). The Gallic Wars. Vol. II. translated by John Warrington. page 52. p. 228.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ The booke of husbandry, John Fitzherbert. London, 1573
- ^ The second book of the English husbandman, Gervase Markham. London, 1614, Part II, ch. VI. Of Plashing of Hedges
- ^ Fischbacher, Thomas (2007), Botanical Engineering (PDF), School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton, archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-12-22
- ^ Wyman's Gardening Encyclopedia 1971: "Pleach".
- PMLA68.1 (March 1953, pp. 189-210) p 196.
- ^ Charles Foster, "The History of the Gardens at Arley Hall, Cheshire" Garden History 24.2 (Winter 1996), pp. 255-271. p 265 and 266:fig 10.
- ^ Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden (New York) 1981 pp 24-25.
- ^ Quarterly Newsletter (Garden History Society) No. 10 (Summer 1969), pp. 8-10.
- ^ Anne Kendal, "The Garden of Rubens House, Antwerp"Garden History 5.2 (Summer 1977, pp 27-29), p.28.
- ^ Ken Lemmon, "Restoration Work at Studley Royal" Garden History 1.1 (September 1972, pp. 22-23) p. 22.
- ^ Article Title: Art Eco, Photographer Deborah Johansen California Living, SF Sun. Examiner and Chronicle 14 Nov 1980
- ^ Article Title: The Tree Circus, Writer: Fredric Hobbs, San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle, 23 Nov 1980
- ^ McKee, Kate (2012), "Living sculpture", Sustainable and water wise gardens, Westview: Universal Wellbeing PTY Limited, pp. 70–73
- ^ Article Title: Nature's Home, books, Princeton Architectural Press, July 2005
References
- Time-Life Encyclopedia of Gardening: Pruning and Grafting