Many home gardeners dream of growing fruit trees, imagining the satisfaction of picking fresh, ripe apples, peaches, plums or cherries straight from their own backyard. But often the mature size of fruit trees becomes an obstacle, as standard varieties can easily reach 20-30 feet tall or more at maturity. Fortunately, with proper pruning and training techniques, it’s possible to keep fruit trees conveniently compact for small yard spaces. This article will explain simple methods to control fruit tree size for easy harvesting within arm’s reach.
Why Keep Fruit Trees Small?
There are several key advantages to intentionally limiting the size of fruit trees:
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Easy harvesting – Fruit on smaller trees can be picked without ladders or other equipment.
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Good sunlight exposure – Compact trees allow more light to penetrate for ripening fruit
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Higher yields – Less internal shading gives better yields on moderately sized trees.
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Pest management – Smaller trees make monitoring and controlling pests simpler.
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Space efficiency – More varieties can be grown productively in a small yard or orchard.
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Earlier bearing – Younger dwarf trees often start fruiting 1-2 years sooner.
Techniques to Restrict Fruit Tree Size
The main secret to restricting fruit tree height lies in pruning. Here are the basic steps:
Start with a Smaller Tree
Purchase whips or young trees no more than 3/4 inch thick at planting time. This smaller initial size makes it easier to restrict growth.
Cut Back at Planting
Prune spring whips back by at least 2/3 their original height when planting. For example, cut a 6 foot whip back to just 2 feet tall. This delays crowding and promotes good branch structure.
Choose Scaffold Branches Carefully
Select well-spaced main branches with wide crotch angles. Prune off unwanted shoots in the first year or two.
Summer Tip Back New Growth
In early summer, tip or head back new shoot growth dramatically by 6-12 inches. Remove any strong vertical shoots.
Head Branches in Winter
Annually head main scaffold branches back to just above fat buds to limit extending growth. Head less aggressively on fragile stone fruits.
Thin the Interior
During the dormant season, thin out inward growing shoots and branches to allow more light penetration.
Control Vigor
To limit growth, avoid fertilizing, and maintain a competitive ground cover or thick mulch. Extra feeding just makes more pruning work.
Specific Pruning Tips By Fruit Type
Certain fruits respond especially well to specific pruning tactics:
Apples/Pears – Establish horizontal scaffolds in winter. Tip back shoots by half in summer to slow growth.
Peaches/Nectarines – Train to open vase shape. Tip shoots back by 6 inches after spring growth spurt.
Cherries – Cut spring whips to 2 feet. Tip new shoots back by 4-6 inches in early summer.
Plums – Remove strong vertical shoots in summer. Head scaffolds back moderately in winter.
Apricots – Prune first year spring whips to 2 feet. Tip back new shoots by at least 50% in summer.
Maintaining Small Fruit Trees Long Term
Here are some key tips for keeping small fruit trees in a compact form long term:
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Prune every year – regular pruning is vital for size control.
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Stay on top of it – frequent light pruning works better than occasional heavy pruning.
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Use heading cuts – removing shoot tips restrains height growth.
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Allow an open shape – improve light penetration by thinning center branches.
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Remove water sprouts – prune out excess vertical growth promptly.
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Limit vigor – avoid overfeeding and excessive pruning that stimulates growth.
The Benefits of Productive Compact Fruit Trees
With a commitment to careful training and annual pruning, it’s very feasible to maintain a wide variety of fruit trees at a conveniently compact size for easy care and harvesting. The rewards are abundant fruit from petite, manageable trees that produce arm’s reach harvests. Try these methods to restrain exuberant growth and keep your fruit trees small for an easy backyard harvest.
Prune Fruit Trees for Small Gardens: The First Summer
In spring and early summer, deciduous fruit trees aggressively expend their energy reserves as they bloom and leaf out. This is when trees are in the mood to grow, and grow they will, often at an alarming rate.
By the time of the solstice in late June, a tree’s resources will have migrated from the roots and trunk to be stored primarily in the foliage. Solstice pruning will remove some of those resources and reduce late season root growth. In other words, summer pruning will slow a tree down, a desirable result for compact fruit trees. While peaches, plums and apricots pruned in fall and winter — the traditional pruning season — can grow as much as 8 feet the following spring, the same pruning cuts made in summer will yield growth of only 1 foot or so. Cuts made while a tree is actively growing will heal quickly, too.
In a perfect world, a young tree would have three or four branches evenly spaced around its trunk. In the real world, branches grow anywhere and anyhow they please. The key to pruning is to envision the future: Consider the placement of the fully grown limbs in relation to one another. You may have too many options. You may have an open area with no branching. You may be tempted to let nature take its course, but leaving too many branches will prevent sunlight from penetrating the interior of the tree. Remove competing branches to create space. An ideal branch angles upward at 45 degrees. If you want to keep a vertical branch, consider a heading cut to encourage horizontal growth, or hang weights on the branch to direct its growth downward.
After removing extraneous branches, cut the remaining scaffold branches back by at least half, to a bud that faces the direction you want the branch to grow. In the case of aggressive growers, such as apricot and plum trees, feel free to prune by two-thirds. Remove any suckers growing from the lowest part of the trunk or the base of the tree.
The closer to the summer solstice you prune fruit trees, the greater your size-control effects. By late summer, nutrients collected by the leaves will have already begun to move into the trunk and roots. A tree begins the shift into dormancy as early as July.
Prune Fruit Trees for Small Gardens: Winter
Winter will be the best time to make structural and aesthetic decisions because your tree will be bare. The dormant season will also be a good time to remove any limbs that just don’t look quite right — those that are too horizontal, grow into a fence, or branch out over a path. You’ll want to remove what Portland, Oregon, pruner John Iott calls “The Three Ds” — the dead, the diseased and the disoriented. Open up the interior with a few well-considered cuts. Observe the growth pattern of the tree, and prune to enhance its natural grace.
Make heading cuts in winter only if you want an enthusiastic response — when you’re trying to develop the first low scaffold branches, or when you’re trying to rejuvenate an older tree. Prune heavily in winter only if a tree has stalled, if pruning has been neglected and needs correction, or if you were too timid last time and want to generate some better choices this time around. The tree will outgrow the pruning with the full force of its reserves.
In subsequent years, just keep pruning: Make architectural decisions in winter and take height down around the summer solstice. When fruit is about the size of the end of your thumb, thin clusters down to a single fruit. Depending on the variety, you may harvest a few fruits by the third year and a few dozen fruits by the fourth.
How should you choose what to keep and what to prune? Ask yourself what seems best, listen to your instincts, and cut something out. The tree will create new choices and you can always make adjustments next season.
2 Tricks for Keeping Fruit Trees Small (Do this right now!)
FAQ
How to keep fruit trees from growing too tall?
To reduce tree height, selectively cut to leave branches growing more horizontal to the ground. Thin out excessive branches as well.
How do you dwarf a fruit tree?
Fortunately, no genetic engineering or modification is involved in making dwarf fruit trees. Instead, they are created using the old-fashioned technique of grafting. A scion (a cutting or shoot from the desired plant cultivar) is grafted onto a rootstock of another plant.