I’m getting ready to plant about a dozen trees in my backyard and I’m trying to understand just how tightly I can plant things without creating future problems (while allowing myself space to add additional trees in the future).
I’d love to hear about your experiences with spacing that’s tighter than the commonly suggested 12 to 16 feet. Bonus points if you share photos of your trees!
i think it’s important to nota that a “good” planting distance depends on quite a few factors.
for example i think you can get away with low vigor cultivars grafted on apple rootstock M27 planted 25 cm (9") apart trained as cordons with some summer pruning.
But i would never even attempt such a planting distance with peach trees for example. (regardless of peach tree rootstock)
If your afraid of running out of space for new trees. I would suggest to learn how to graft. That way you don’t need as much space for new tree’s you can add variety to your existing ones.
I think once you share the cultivars and rootstocks that you plan on planting, this forum can really give you a precise answer. I have a few apple trees on g-890 and M111, peach and nectarine trees on Lovell and Bailey, pears on OHxF97, and some cherries on Mahaleb. I believe the recommendation for most of those is >=15 feet, however I have everything spaced 12 feet apart. I believe that is about as close as you want to go unless you plan to prune like crazy. I have some space constraints that caused me to plant them that close. I also would’ve picked more dwarfing rootstocks but my local nursery (ACN) didn’t have many available. I’ll be putting in a few plum trees that are on Citation and Krymsk-1 and my plan is to plant them a bit closer. I’d like to know where my limit is with those so I’m curious to see what this thread looks like in a few days.
I imagine I will be in the minority here, but I still would like to make my claim. I don’t think tree spacing is a rule, I do think it can be; but there are factors which rule it out.
What do you want out of your yard?
Do you want as many varieties as possible? What types of trees?
I say if you match vigor, and plant wisely north-south (largest/most vigorous more north in decreasing size and vigor to the south {assuming you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, reverse for southern hemisphere}) you can really cram a lot into a small area. Then it comes down to pruning, I have some citrus on like 4-6ft spacing but I want them to form a hedge so I can cover it all with one cover eventually. My 4 stone fruit trees with a lot of varieties grafted to them are on about 6-8ft spacing but I made the scaffolding go in alternating directions to keep some room between them. I also want a small dense lush jungle, with a lot of different types of fruit. I don’t so much care about the appearance, as that is the aesthetic I prefer.
Maybe one day I’ll regret my choices, I’ve moved several things in the 4-5 years I’ve been doing it. I have made decisions I wouldn’t make again today, but that’s part of the fun. There is no right or wrong way depending upon the individual. I just like planting things, adding new fruits and cultivars; and making my sometimes poor choices right again.
Again I wouldn’t plant like Valencia pride mangos with 6ft spacing, that’s not going to work as it’s a huge tree that wants to be a huge tree. But many things don’t mind being small, and are pretty malleable.
Another factor is age, are you young enough to afford yourselves mistakes, young enough to harvest fruit from really large trees? Or are you at an age that you want to be able to harvest everything without use of a ladder, or don’t want to manage the height of your trees twice a year. So many things are based on your needs and wants. I think there are many ways to make a nice backyard (or front yard in my case) orchard. Good luck, and keep us updated on how it goes.
I’ve done many super-tight spacings over the years, I planted many things 2’ apart and some things even closer. At some point it gets out of hand, everything is struggling to get light and growing straight up and its a mess.
I have evolved a compromise of closeness to have a lot of trees and distance to make it not too hard to keep in line and to get a good crop. I now use around 6’ for peaches, 8’ for plums, and 6-10’ for apples and pears depending on the rootstock. With pruning experience it’s not too hard to keep the trees in line with that spacing. Anything closer and it starts to get more difficult.
The species peach, cherry, apple, etc. makes a difference. It also depends on the rootstock of the tree dwarf, semi-dwarf or standard. Pruning system also will alter the needed space, an apple tree trained to a central leader system needs more space than a tree trained to a tall spindle system.
For apples look at this tree spacing calculator it takes all of these variables into account and gives you an idea how all this works.
http://fruitadvisor.info/tfruit/clements/appletreespacing.htm
For a general overview of tree spacing for several species take a look at this webpage.
https://www.grandpasorchard.com/page/Rootstocks-and-Spacing-made-simple
Personally, I have dwarf apple trees spaced at 3-4 feet for tall spindle trained trees and about 10 feet for trees trained to a different system. For cherries spacing is 15-20 feet.
What are the trees you are planting and what are the cultivars and rootstocks for them? With that information we could give you better advice.
I’ve got the following coming in:
I would’ve never imagined planting things so closely! I’m mostly thinking in terms of “Can I do around 8 to 10 feet for some trees?” But it’s incredibly interesting to hear about folks who’ve experimented with far, far tighter plantings and how it went for them.
This is such a fantastic attitude! It’s taken me a few years to finally start letting go of my attachment to prior layout decisions and accept that change is inevitable in the garden.
I love this thread because I need it badly right now. I’m in Zone 4b at 45 degrees north. I’m still unsure about my layout and I have a lot pre-ordered. I was planning on semi-dwarf plots 12’ apart North-to-South and 4’ more between rows for 16’ apart East-to-West. I only have room for 4x4 grid, which is plenty enough for 1 person. However if I could do 11’ North-to-South and 11+4 = 15’ East-to-West I would have more breathing room for grass walkways and evergreen privacy hedges.
I’m getting things like Quince, Mulberry, Meader Persimmon, Medlar, Seaberry (for which I’ll subdivide plots), and Wild Plum.
Of the fruit types you will be getting, keep in mind that your SeaBerry male tree should be upwind of your female trees. Usually the male tree grows taller that the females so having a single male upwind is all you need to pollinate 5-6 females.
Of similar concern would be your plums, the more concentrated your plums are, the better cross pollination and production you can expect, particularly true for early blossoming Asian varieties that blossom much earlier that the bees fly. Most of the other types are self fertile but your mulberry is a sun lover, give it your best sun exposure and mulch it heavily each year with wood chips for maximum production.
Everything else is secondary. In many cases of fruit production it’s maximizing sun exposure and how well you mulch out to the drip line that matters most. The sun is your source of energy and the nutrients available out to the drip line is dependent upon how you soil is friendly to the microbes that enhance fertility. Thus a thick annually refreshed mulch keeps your feeder roots happy.
My take
Dennis
Kent, wa
I recommend to you choose rootstock of less vigor for plums, peaches and apricots, so you can plant them closer, for a house it is better to have smaller trees that will give you less pruning work and will give you enough fruit, the idea is to have more trees but smaller and have a more staggered harvest.
Just yesterday I planted trees in Rootpac20 which is dwarf rootstock, similar to Krymsk-1, and I planted them a meter away.
Greetings
I don’t think we have that in the US. In general there is no dwarf plum rootstock I know of in the US. Citation and sand cherry have been used but for me neither has done much dwarfing at all. So for plums be prepared to prune a lot to keep them smaller.
Apples are at the other end of the extreme, from M27 to seedling there is a huge range of tree sizes you can get.
Like most folks that are inspired with the idea of new trees I’ve dealt with this question, in my case with several different locations. When I started with a mature commercial orchard the trees were huge and spaced to allow tractors with sprayers. A local orchard that has recently replanted apples has them spaced about 4 feet apart with 12 foot aisles. The trees are kept narrow, on dwarfing root stock, and supported by wires.
I’m now in a place with few full sun options for planting,and a long list of must-have trees. All the advise above is excellent, and it makes me glad such a forum exists. I think the main decision is how intensely you want to manage things. The tighter you plant the more you have to be on top of maintenance. Given that, you can really have fun, as @Gkight expressed well.
Just as a word of caution, I had terrible problems with the plums, pluots and pluerry I planted too close together with not enough circulation. They got brown rot despite all organic and non-organic fungicides, and it spread through them like wildfire. All of them are gone now. I’ve had no problem with tight-spaced peaches, apples, and pears.
Hi, I know Rootpac20 is not available in US, for that reason I wrote Krymsk-1 , Krymsk-1 is available in US in several nurseries at a cheap price , suitable for plums, peaches,nectarines, most apricots …meanly for all stone fruits and will allow people that want to having trees very close due to lack of space or prefer don’t have big trees
Best Regards
Right… I misread what you wrote. I thought you were stating Rootpac20 was more dwarfing.
I personally didn’t get much dwarfing out of any of the plum rootstocks in my orchard. I had trees on Myro (full size) next to the dwarfing Mariana, Citation, and St. Julian, and there was not a lot of difference. Some of the trees have calmed down, but it’s both the dwarfing and non-dwarfing stocks that have gotten less vigorous over the years. Peaches on the other hand I don’t want a dwarfing stock, I need all the vigor I can get in my climate for peach. They are always much smaller than plums. Apricots are like plums, vigorous on all stocks I put them on. Well, on peach rootstock apricots go completely nuts, they turn into monster trees. I think climate is a factor here, I have heard of others in warmer climates getting different results than the advertised dwarfing on stocks. Apple rootstocks and quince for pears are the only stocks that truly deliver on the size they promise for me.
4 in one hole is doable for some.
3 in one hole is doable for some.
