Fruit trees suitable for the suburban yard

Fruit trees suitable for the suburban yard

Most of us don’t live on acreage so we don’t have the luxury of setting up our own organic fruit orchard.  Luckily that means also not having the full-time work that goes along with tending a large orchard too.  So what fruits can we grow in a limited area?

When choosing plants or trees you’ll want to consider the overall size that it grows to.  A small potted specimen at the local nursery might look great with a couple of fruit dangling on some wiry limbs to entice you into purchasing it, but what do you do once you plant it and it takes over the whole backyard?

Look for plants or trees that ultimately don’t get any taller than about 3-5 metres (10-15 ft) depending on the size of your yard.  You can get “dwarf” species that are ideal for the home garden.  They are called dwarf because are regular fruit trees that have been grafted onto dwarfing rootstock which will limit their overall growth without affecting the size of the fruit.

Some dwarf fruit trees include apples, stonefruit, citrus, fig, mango and even a mulberry.  There are many varieties in this selection so you could get a lime tree and an orange tree.  Or you might want to include a dwarf nectarine and a dwarf peach to get a choice of fruit.

Another way to get a choice of fruit is to get a multi-grafted fruit tree.  This is a tree that has different varieties grafted into the one rootstock.  I’ve got a couple of these at home and it really saves on space.  One is a triple grafted pear tree that produces a Buerre Bosc, Packham’s Triumph and a William’s pear all on the one tree!  These are sometimes called “fruit salad trees” because they can have a number of varieties.  Just remember that you have to keep varieties similar – different types of citrus or different types of apples or different types of stonefruit on the one tree.  You can’t put an apple, a peach and an orange all on the one tree.

What makes a multi-grafted tree great is that most of these varieties are not self pollinating on their own, so you need to have at least 2 varieties in your backyard to produce fruit and not everyone has the space for several full sized fruit trees.

You can also save space using espalier techniques. This is where a full sized tree is trained from the beginning to grow on a vertical surface or wires instead of allowing it to grow in it’s usual shape.  An apple tree can splayed in a fan shape against a brick wall or fence and any outward branches are clipped off to keep it on a flat plane.

Other tropical fruits can be grown in temperate, non-frosty areas in a small backyard too. You could include carambola (star fruit), paw paw, persimmon, guavas and tamarillo.  Figs, pomegranate and quince like mediterranean climates and can be grown in well in the suburban yard.

Berries and vine plants such as kiwi-fruit, passionfruit and grapes are more fruits that can be successfully produced in a small but well designed yard.  I’ll talk more on these in a later blog.






Until then, happy gardening.

The Veggie Lady.