On 2013-10-09 11:49:50 +0100, Sacha said:

On 2013-10-08 18:04:48 +0100, Nick Maclaren said:

In article ,
Janet wrote:

[ Fat table omitted ]

Looks like pleached hornbeams.Someone is making a very labour intensive
tall, narrow privacy screen between the road and the house.

Hornbeams are a tree not a shrub.

Well, maybe - the problem is that the boundary between the two is
rather unclear. Hornbeam can be grown as a shrub (i.e. coppiced)
with no difficulty. I agree that is neither doing so nor anything
that looks even remotely sensible!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I think it looks like someone has bought several of the pre-sale
espaliered fruit trees one can buy. Off the top of my head, I can't
remember all of them but I'm pretty sure that along with peach and
apricot, there's also apple, pear and plum. For those who aren't
familiar with this method, the frame is an A shape with several cross
pieces and the trees have already been tied into them. If we've got
any, I'll try taking a photo.

These are youngsters but the ones in the OP's photo may well be more
mature versions. Afaik, they can be bought in all sorts of sizes.
There seems to be a combination of the A-frame and pleaching frames in
the photo. There is a beautiful pleached hornbeam hedge either side of
an allée at Roy Strong's garden, The Laskett and another lovely one at
Buckfast Abbey.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9369440...1825/lightbox/
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk