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  • Fruit tree spacing.

    I currently have one apple tree two pear trees two cherry trees and two plum trees all planted seperately in large pots.They are all in their second season and grown on dwarf rootstock.If i keep them to about 6 foot high and regularly pruned how close in a long but only one metre wide bed should i be spacing them from each other?

  • #2
    You can plant as closely or as far apart as you like. Just try to visualise how nice or ugly they will look when you're finished.
    With summer pruning, it is easy to keep fruit trees very small but productive.
    Remember that dwarf rootstocks find it difficult to compete with plants growing around them. Dwarfs may also need regular feeding, watering and mulching.

    I would suggest that in an ideal world, whatever the canopy spread you desire, allow about a quarter to half as much again for root spread. If you want a tree with branches that extend 3ft in each direction (i.e. 6ft wide and high), you should plant 7.5-9ft apart.
    But with good pruning, you can shape a tree into a column, a fan, a bush or a pyramid shape.


    For more information on expected tree sizes, see this useful calculator:
    > Link <


    More closely spaced trees will compete with each other and restrict each others growth, but extra competition isn't necessarily a problem; it depends what you want to achieve.

    Studies have been done with apple trees on vigorous seedling roots, at varying planting distances. Seedling-rooted trees cropped better, earlier and heavier the closer they were spaced. The closer spaced trees simply diverting more energy to fruit and less to growth.
    On poorer soils, growth rate and final tree size is greatly reduced because the tree has to put more effort into growing enough roots to find the nutrients it needs.

    In my soil (which ranks as poor in the calculator) I have to use very strong rootstocks to keep the trees vigorous and healthy enough. The "medium vigour" MM106, St.Julien A and Quince A rootstocks normally used to produce 10ft small trees/larger bushes are only able to grow a few inches per year and only achieve about half their "book" size, and often require several years just to get enough root growth to power normal growth and normal fruiting.
    Last edited by FB.; 17-06-2011, 05:39 PM.
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