Is your 1/2 acre your yard or your entire lot with the house?
I have 27 trees ranging from sprawling apples to a stick of a grafted Anjou pear, all on a 1/3 acre plot.
Wishing you health and fruitfulness of your orchard!
You’re not close to a problem yet. I have .16 acres including the house. Some of these are shrubs/small bushes, canes etc. but I’m over 100 fruiting trees etc in ground and pots. If I had half an acre I’d be into the thousands by now haha
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Same! My backyard is 52 ft x 35 ft, not even 1/20th of an acre, and somehow we have approximately 8 billion fruiting shrubs back there. And just ordered apples (1 semi-dwarf, 2 columnar). And are considering blackberries. Or more currants. Or…
I’ve tried to be thoughtful about spacing but once it all grows out, we are going to be surrounded by a solid wall of fruit. Admittedly the semi-dwarf apple might have been a bit much, it will take some pruning to jeep it from running into our serviceberry and/or porch.
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I’ve been slowly planting our ~6600 sq ft lot (including the house), which was mostly grass when we bought the house 3+ years ago. My philosophy is to plant far too closely and then later I’ll just remove the less successful stuff or things I end up not liking, before they start shading each other too badly. It also helps that I’m an avid zone pusher, so some things end up removing themselves, so to speak.
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I have to be honest, this entire thread is making me feel really happy. I was partially making a quick joke above when I said “I feel seen”, but am actually really feeling the community reading this thread.
The other day, someone visited us for the first time and when they looked at our backyard they were like “wow that’s like a farm” and I was quite pleased.
We also have a tiny backyard. Also great to see a lot of other folks like yourself really pushing the space you have. That’s why I’m now all about planting very close and using a lot of pots. Space in the ground is very much at a premium.
I’m almost there on this decision but I think I’m going to put in a mango and a sapodilla (cheeku or chico) into the ground in spots where I had previously planned to put an orange and a persimmon. My reasoning is that the persimmon will produce well in a large pot, and the orange - I have another spot for - maybe - but it’s already producing in a pot. Maybe I up-pot it.
But cheeku and mango are fruits I either don’t get at all here or get terrible flavor on. Plus those are evergreen so will give us a bit of a privacy hedge vs the persimmon (orange is also evergreen so that issue doesn’t apply to it).
Anyways - great to read all the comments.
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I can understand how everybody is feeling. I wanted 2 cherry trees this year and I got it. I have to dug out that 9 year old bush and replanted on the other side of the neighbor. I dug out the 1 year old plus apple tree and replanted it in a pot. Now, I have 2 happy cherry trees and that make me happy.
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Our 1/4 acre lot (including single story house) started with a pluot tree and orange tree.
I wanted to add a 4-in-1 hole Dave Wilson Nursery style.
Somehow I’ve ended up with:
In ground (total 57, I think…)
14 plum/pluot/pluerry trees (+ grafts)
14 citrus trees
8 apple trees
5 peach/nectarine trees (+ grafts)
4 apricot trees (+2 grafts)
4 cherry trees
2 avocado trees
2 pomegranate trees
1 Pakistan mulberry
1 guava
1 olive
1 panache fig
1 pear (5 variety espalier)
In ground shrubs:
16 blueberry bushes
6-10 blackberries
4 mulberries
1 raspberry
Potted:
22 figs (different varieties)
3 mulberries
2 citrus
1 persimmon (needs to be planted, but I have no idea where)
We’ve still got around 600 sq ft of grass in the back yard, but no plans to change that.
I’m out of room, and working on grafting additional varieties from here. I’m so tempted to start putting more in pots…
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Some of my fig cuttings produced year 1, most by year 2. They’re easy to start and don’t initially take up much space in pots. Plus it’s a lot of fun, figs have a very enthusiastic following for many reasons.
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Suburb, less than .50 acre yard. Yes looking for a smaller house with bigger land. This post is making me feel less guilty for getting too many plants 
300 roses *+
15 fig trees. 10 of them inground and over 15 ft. The pthers in various pots. I do get about 100lbs of figs every year
1 persimmon- 300-500 fruits every year
2 jujube- planted last year, not seen any fruit yet
2 apple- dwarf, not eaten any apples
1 pear- taking uo space as i have yet to taste the fruit
1 2inone asian pear still in a pot
Blueberries: went into crazy obsession last year and now count went from 5 to 25
Blackberry: had one and now have 3
Raspberry: went from 2 to now 5
Strawberries: went from 2 variety to now 5
Still doing all kinda of veggies, 10-15 varities of annual flowers…
And after all that have a little time left for living, barely 
*+ equates to, I dare not count, as it could be 100 more.
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The cherry tree looks amazing. What variety is that? I have a bartlett that is a waste of space, prbably has fire blight. Blackened twigs at the ends. What state are you in, I think that matters for cherry. I am in VA zone 7b and too many disease with stone fruit. Removed santa rosa and stanley plum because of disease…but plant was extremely prolofic producer
I have a total of over 8 acres I could plant if I were desperate, but once the larders are full, what does one do with it all? It then becomes a ball and chain, especially once one retires and wants to travel or experiences health issues. Neighbors and friends nowadays don’t know much about picking fruit and have even less interest in spraying, netting or weeding. That being said, I generally break down and add “a few” new trees or bushes each year due to the “addiction.”
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We are in MD zone 7 near Annapolis. I just went out to “inspect the troops” (fruit trees) and to see if there are any buds growing yet. There are only 7 figs so I leave them to my wife to watch. The cherry trees consist of one Hungarian Jubilee cherry (I have decided that this one is a waste of money, only about 30 cherries every year, but I don’t have the heart to trash it), one Montmorency, one Tartarian Black, one White Gold, one Eastern Bing, one Royal Anne, one regular Bing, one Hudson, and two Van. It is the Van that produces several buckets of cherries. I am watching the Whitney Crabapple tree this year because it looks like (year 3) there will be 40-50 little two-three inch apples. Last year, there were 2 apples. My plan is to pickle the crabapples…IF I can learn HOW TO PICKLE. In a nutshell, I have 10 cherry, 10 peach, 10 apple, 3 crabapple, 3 pear, 6 pawpaw, 2 persimmon, 30 blueberry, 20 raspberry, 20 currants, and 4 kiwi berry.
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Agreed. I don’t mind gritty pears so I think the kieffer will be great. Thus far Anjou is my favorite, so I will be keeping that tree pure (except maybe some red Anjou for fun), whereas the kieffer, summer crisp and Asian pears can all graduate to frankentrees.
That is an impressive collection!
The 1/2 acre is the entire lot including small house, two detached garages, big driveway, mature Doug firs to the east and mature Siberian elms to the west (and one to the south). So the fruit trees are kind of strung around the backyard where there are areas of decent sun. What I didn’t realize initially is that the north fence has the best sun of the whole yard- unfortunately I planted a big chokecherry and red oak there.
In the main area I’m still trying to leave room for a garden, plus eventual replacement of the sewer line, and maybe a greenhouse. If I gave up on all that there would easily be room for another dozen fruit trees or so
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All I’m hearing is that you have startup genetic material for a part time (full time?) flower business and enough fruit to feed the family
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That’s amazing on the roses (and in general)!! I have a starter rose collection - will post about it some time. But I have (so far) 10. 300-400 is massive and super cool. Do you collect varieties or do you have a business and try to produce more volume within a smaller set of varieties?
I’m growing haskaps. They make incredible jam. It is better to grow the ones that stand straight up: they are easier to pick. I’d make jam just for the color: It is like looking through a church stained glass window. They taste very good too.
I also love fruit that I do not need a ladder for!
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In a warm zone 4, I’d like to grow roses, but they would have to be antique roses, that are not fussy, to make lookoums with. [Turkish delights.]
I am still looking for the right kind…
You’ll have to join us on our most popular honeyberry thread:
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