What would you plant in this garden?

How would you space the fruit trees? I feel like it’s such a small space for these 20ft+ trees but I know it’s because I’m a noob with no clue what I’m doing xD

Are standard size trees going to be fine here or what size tree should be my limit?
I was a little surprised when I saw that my contender peach tree could grow to be 30ft+.
They do not look so big online!

You could put at least 60 apple trees in that space on B9 or G11 or M9 rootstock!

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I agree with mamuang. I would stay away from any stone fruits. Like she said, they will live there, but you will rarely see fruit. Most people on the east coast have to work hard to see fruit because of disease and other problems. I think you would be wasting time and money on them.

You can cram a lot in that space. There are plenty of people on here with less and they have it packed. Best thing to do is take a look around and see what is doing well for other people in your area. Apples, pears, berries, kiwi for sure.

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We have raised beds in our backyard for our vegetables so I was thinking this side yard would be a fun little mini orchard. My kitchen window overlooks it so I would love to see flowering trees and developing fruit while I spend as much time as I do washing dishes. XD
Plus, I still have some things like berries I would like to plant that I don’t have room for in the backyard. Flowers are definitely my forte too this spring. We have a flowerbed in our front yard that I am also currently planning. Going to test my hand at Dinnerplate Dahlias.

What exactly are rootstocks? Why are they better? Why go bare root and cut shorter?

I don’t believe deer are an issue here. We are in town, but maybe they stroll through here… I don’t know. We just moved in last fall and this will be my first growing season on this property.

Definitely want to get my hands on some dwarf cherry trees! I would love a sweeter cherry but I heard zone 4 is good for mostly tart.

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Thank you! I would love to go full out with dwarfies and berries! XD Since we don’t have fence between us and the neighbor’s yard, do you think they would have issues with us filling it up with a bunch of trees?

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You might like this thread:

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Stores tend to sell what people want to buy. 9 times out of 10 people don’t complain or ask for a refund when a tree dies that they got from a big box store the year before. Anyway, yes, yes, yes you can have a mini orchard in that space! :slight_smile: Might I suggest you add some honeyberries in among your orchard. They fair well in your climate. :slight_smile:

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I don’t know if I would go for full sized. Considering that you can fit a bunch of semi dwarf in the space a full, would take, it seems the better option.
You also can prune down a bit. Many things will be slower growers there too.
I’m technically 5b, but we slip lower some years so I aim for 4, mostly. I don’t bother with peach for that reason. ( plus, we live close enough to the Niagara region that I can buy really good ones)

Of the trees, the only one that has really produced for me so far is my Montmancy sour cherry, which is great. My single Saskatoon is growing well, but the birds strip it. The pears are doing pretty good, but are young and one turns out to be bad at pollination so not much yet.
We refer to all the plums as lying freeloaders, but I keep hoping.
Mulberries do well in this zone, and produce, but mine are still small. Apricots do okay here, if you can protect them from the buns.
I have pawapaws, but this is the outer end of range and I will be lucky if they get big enough for fruit in my lifetime.

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It is hard to go organic and figure you aren’t going to spray anything. Also stone fruits are difficult. I would suggest starting small and adding gradually, so you can get a feel for how much work it can be. I have tried to avoid poisons, but have had lots of crop failures. Apples you can bag, pears can get by fairly well without sprays, early summer berries are okay, but there are always pests lurking ready to ruin your crops! Also be sure to wire for deer and rabbits. They are EVERYWHERE!

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Thanks @dimitri_7a.

FarmGirl, check out my writeups. Should give you a good starting point. Main tips. Ideally on some raised mounds/rows for good drainage. Mutch with ramial mulch or woodchips. Paint all trees with 1:1:1 white latex:water:joint compound each fall AND wrap trunks with protectors against rabbits/voles. If there are deer within 10 miles put up a 8’ fence immediately. Stronly suggest putting in an irrigation system right at the start. Ditch-witch is cheap to rent. Run pipes down each row and then up upspouts at each tree and bush and drip tape for vegitables, garlic, ect. Much better than hand watering.

Smallest stuff to the south and south-west. Largest to the North, North East. Rows going in a North-South vertical orientation. You don’t want plants to shade others so you want good sun from south and west. I would plant ground level plants/vegitables in the far south. Then a row of black currants (top out around 3 feet). Then a row of Haskasp which top out 4-6’ (Aurora, Tundra, Boreal Beauty/Beast/Blizard). If you have clay or higher pH soil ignore blueberries. Consider then some elderberries. Each elderberry plant will expand to 6’x6’ to 8’x8’. At least 1 Bob Gordon and 1 Wyldwood. Elderflower cordial with sparkling water is amazing and no bugs eat flowers so you will always get at least 1 thing no matter how bad of a year it is. For fruit go with apples, pears and plums. DON’T fall for the whole dwarfing garbage. Cold climates need vigorous trees for harsh winters and short growing seasons. They live longer and bounce back better if you get borers or vole damage or or or. You can keep a tree at whatever height you want by heavy pruning, branch bending and heavy bearing. Don’t worry about having less varieties due to larger trees, grafting is super easy. I have a semi-standard that is 10-12’ tall, 20’ wide and I am up to something like 70 different varieties of apples on it. Apples go with Bud118 rootstock. Pears OHxF87 and plant your pears in the far north of the row and ideally north-east corner. Suckers can fight to get tall. I would space my Apple/Pear trees at 22-25’ apart in the row and 20-25’ between rows. Easy to mow around, don’t have to worry to much about them growing into each other. I would multigraft every tree with at least 5-6 different varieties. See my posts for varieties. Try to do fireblight and other disease resistant. My favorites so far are:
Apples early to late: Redfree, Norkent, Bilodeau, Wynochee early, Crimson Crisp, Macfree
Also consider Liberty, Chestnut (have not tasted yet but everyone raves)
Pears have not tasted most yet but Lucious, Patten and the Harrow series would be good to look at (Harrow Sweet, Harrow Delight, Harvest Queen).
Plums, stupid bugs get them all so far. Best rootstock success for me has been Myrobalan and Myrianna 4626 (spelling?).

Tried peaches, not hardy, don’t like my clay. Still trying apricots.

Have fun. Read my posts and message me if questions. Still have to get 2018, 2019 out but have been busy and COVID has F’d up my spring plans big time.

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@hungryfrozencanuck4b,
I think your post is meant for @JillDief.

You are probably in the best position to provide her advice considering you are in the same zone and have “been there, done that”.

Jill - for peaches, like plums, their enemies include but are not limited to canker, brown rot, borers, plum curculios, oriental fruit moths, stink bugs,etc. These do not include deer, rabbits, groundhogs, opossums, etc., all of them love you fruit and the trees (deer).

Growing fruit trees esp. stone fruit like peaches, plums, cherries in our east coast with no spray will be a very difficult thing to do.

I appreciate all of your recommendations, but I’m not the OP. :slight_smile:

I think you can definitely do what you want and grow organically you just need to keep your expectations in line with reality! I also planted many things people said would not work and so far i have gotten peaches 3 out of 5 years we will see how year 6 goes! Sweet cherries for me however have only been 1 in 3 years.
Sours are much more reliable bloomwise and more cold hardy and snap cold tolerant.

If the company does not tell you what rootstock the tree is on they basically are not putting a lot of effort or care into the tree and making sure you get what you need. You should research rootstocks for your climate or go by reccomendations of those on here near your area. In general your peaches are fine and are on seedling rootstocks, you can summer prune them to maintain your desired height. I would cut the tree short cuz i want a V or multi branched open vase peach tree. Some trees may need raised beds if they sit in water all winter and blueberries usually need raised beds also but maybe they do good in your ground, do you know your soil type and ph?

You definitely need to check out the romance series cherries and Juliet, Carmine Jewel and maybe romeo? Montmorency is a excellent sour cherry tree that is very good once overripe and juliet is the sweetest of the sour cherries it seems. Raintree sells alot of good cherry trees on gisela which are great rootstocks for most areas, you should check on your area though.

I think you should chat with your neighbor and see how they feel about the trees and Orchard. You can explain its a victory garden and you are doing things organically they way your grandparents did to maybe alleviate some of his concerns. Do what you want on your property but you may need to put up a fence and its worthwhile making the neighbor happy if they are reasonable.

I would definitely listen to @hungryfrozencanuck4b but he is actually a zone under you since canada moves the zones up one notch. See what the local nurseries have success with and maybe try to find some local u picks and see what they do well with.

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I’ll jump in here with a little clarification on rootstocks, and then a second comment.

Every tree, vine, etc. has a rootstock. Some are seedling rootstocks, some are clones of a known rootstock that is known to do certain things particularly well.

For example, if pears are grown on plants grown from seeds it means somebody has planted seeds from a pear, and when they grew large enough a small piece of tree is grafted to that rootstock, and all the pears from that little grafted piece will always be the same kind as the tree it came from. So you get Bartlett pears not by planting seeds from Bartletts, but by grafting Bartlett buds or scions to the little tree that grew from seeds.

A seedling pear tree is liable to fatal infection from fireblight. So when people discovered a couple of trees that had survived a very serious fireblight epidemic they started cloning the roots. There are a handful of such rootstocks that provide some resistance to fireblight. And among them there is a range of sizes the tree will grow to, so you can choose a larger or smaller Bartlett on relatively healthy roots. There are similar things with other fruits, including apples, stone fruit, grapes, and the like.

The other thing I wanted to say is that once you get your orchard going you’ll have a lot of fruit to deal with as well as a lot of plants to care for. So you might start out a little cautiously, which is hard to do. But it’s true that dwarf trees are easier to care far (no ladders!) and you won’t get so much fruit. On the other hand, my one 12 foot tall apple, a semi dwarf, produced well over 250 pounds of apples this fall, so you can surely get a lot of fruit from a smallish orchard.

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What do you know about your soil? Your soil can limit what you successfully grow. Blueberries, hardy grapes, American persimmons, apples, pears, disease resistant hazelnuts, walnuts, hardy plums, and Nanking cherry. Eastern growers are constantly bitching about disease and pest problems with their stone fruits, so I would look for resistant varieties if you go that route. You can probably bite off more than you can chew very easily with stone fruits. You don’t look like you have a lot of drainage in that field, so you could have cracking and brownrot issues in stone fruits, in addition to the stuff that attacks the tree.
I would start with a sure thing, and add the iffy fruits after you get going. Early success will encourage you to plant more. If you are overwhelmed with problem trees early on, it could discourage you from the whole endeavor. I would go with dwarf or semi-dwarf rootstocks on the apple and pear, but consider a more vigorous rootstock for stone fruits. You can prune aggressively to keep them in check, and the extra vigor may help it overcome pest and disease damage. I would keep stone fruits short enough that you can easily treat the whole tree for pest and disease. They may not bear a ton of fruit, but you will cherish the ones it makes.
I love nectarines, sweet cherries, and peaches; but I have to be realistic with what I can grow in my climate, so I am only devoting a small space to these trees.

I thought the same thing last year, but a buck managed to strip several plum trees and break apple limbs with his rack.

Lots of great advice here. I have packed a lot of trees on a small area of my yard all apples on bud-9 (dwarf) are spaced 3’ apart and row spacing 8 ft. They are trained tall spindle so they are slender. right now i have 70 apples and have grafted 40 more to plant this spring. They are in a spot roughly 50x140 If you want a lot of varieties this might b a good option. I also have a few espalier this is also a good option.

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I was going to say that UNH extension recommends peaches for NH, but then I re-read their peach document and it says extreme southern NH! So, good call.

That being said, @JillDief may have some luck with espalier, or just accepting not getting peaches most years. And Fedco recommends Garnet Beauty for northern districts. In my experience, Fedco means areas north of them in Waterville when they say that.

For people who have grown fruit trees in colder zones for 10 years or more, we tend to get reality bites, often more than once :grin:.

For @JillDief, two things I see that will be challenging: her choice of fruit tree - peach and her intention to grow it organically. Tough combination.

People zone-push all the time. As long as a person is armed with knowledge and reasonable expectations, things can be tolerable if they don’t go your way.

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Showing a blank, unplanted area like that is a great way to get the adrenaline flowing. It’s got me thinking “if I could do this all over again what would I do differently?”. My zone is way off from yours, but I do have a little advice. One basic problem is that your goals may change (a lot) over time, and with trees you sort of get locked in to a basic layout. Of course trees do die off or get damaged or you may dislike one or more varieties and cut them out, but the basic layout is there. In my case I wish I would have built in some more flexibility so that I could morph the garden toward my changing interests…a grid of trees is hard to change. I would start with a master plan: map out the site, including structures that cast shade, and start playing around with layouts. A grid-like orchard? A diverse food forest with curvy swales? A native area with a pond surrounded by trees? And walking paths? Border/beds for low annuals/herbaceous perennials? A seating area, with shade from taller trees? A pollinator garden in addition to trees? It goes on and on. It can be a lot to think about…and if you know some good experienced gardeners in your area it would help to see their gardens and talk to them…ever better get into a local Master Gardener program and then you’ll really see a lot of stuff to get ideas from. Needless to say I am very jealous of you. Have fun!

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I think only your neighbors can answer that! That being said, I like to keep things at least a little way back from unfenced boundaries as a courtesy.

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