Espaliering fruit trees is popular even today. Obviously in this case people are just picking fruit off the water sprouts that shoot up each year rather than us

Espaliering fruit trees is popular even today. Obviously in this case people are just picking fruit off the water sprouts that shoot up each year rather than using the wood for other purposes, but the general idea is the same. The shoots just get trimmed back every year rather than every other year. E.g. if you look at this pic of a fig tree, you can see that it looks almost identical to the Japanese technique: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/10/realestate/06garden2/oakImage-1633376700058-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/10/realestate/06gard...