In my post showing photos of the Italian Garden at Arley Arboretum I was asked what the trees lining the wall were and at the time I didn’t know. I have now found out that they are Silver Lime trees (Tilia tomentosa) and the interlocking of the branches is pleaching which is a term I have never heard of before.

Pleaching is a technique to weave the branches of trees into a hedge. Commonly, deciduous trees are planted in lines, then pleached to form a flat plane on clear stems above the ground level. Branches are woven together and lightly tied.^[1] Branches in close contact may grow together, due to a natural phenomenon called inosculation, a natural graft.