Fence Eating Trees

Norway maple starting to grow into fence

Fence running through crab apple tree

A tree may eventually engulf anything in it's way as it slowly grows. I've seen gravestones, fences, nails and clotheslines all 'eaten' by trees. For years I've used a small area north of my garage between the garage and a chainlink fence as a good out-of-the-way place to compost leaves and weeds. A few wild tree though have taken hold and probably managed to not get cleared out because they were very close to the fence. One of the trees is a crab apple tree that has managed to grow tall enough to get some sun over the garage. It has pretty flowers in spring so I've let it be. Over the years it's managed to grow right through the fence. Actually about 1/4 of the trunk is on the neighbors side of the fence.

Recently I was thinking about finding a place for a few dwarf fruit trees. In my post Thinking in Another Dimension - Espalier , I discussed how I'm planning on having a few fruit trees that I espalier to the front of my house. Another idea I'm thinking about is trying to graft some regular apple scions onto the crab apple. I figure I have nothing to loose and it would be a good tree on which to practice learning to graft. There is also a Norway maple growing through the same fence. All I can think of doing with that tree is adding it to the wood pile, unless someone has a better idea.