Plant One:

Your grower must be talking about columnar apple trees, which were bred for container culture and planting in very tight spaces. A bushel of apples from one of these trees is quite an exaggeration, but a dozen or so is not out of the question on a mature tree. Most catalog and online nurseries sell these trees, and I have seen some favorable reports on them, as well as quite a few that were critical. Just punch "columnar apple trees" into your Google search, and shop around. There must be a dozen or so varieties of these things around now, some red, some yellow, some early, some late. All of them have very short side branching.

Most growers plant two different varieties for cross-pollination, but if there are any other apple trees in your neighborhood, even decorative crabs, pollination may not be an issue. Apple trees are insect pollinated, and do not have to be right next to each other to work. So you might be able to get by planting only one.

An espalier using a dwarfing rootstock would probably be better; more attractive and certainly a better fruit producer, but you must have a wall with good sunlight, and learn to prune and train an espalier tree. Certainly not impossible.

Most other fruit trees, such as peaches and cherries, must have more side branching, since that is where the fruit is produced. But you can keep nearly any tree on a modern rootstock small by timely pruning.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

If you are really tight for room look up the mini-dwarf trees on M27 rootstock. They never get very tall. They don't produce a bushel either, though. Raintree Nursery sell many varieties.

Scott

About 12 years ago, I attended a very interesting talk by an apple breeder at the experiment station in Geneva, NY. She was very excited about the potential of these new columnar trees, which she said could facilitate machine harvesting of orchards. The one problem, she said, was that the apples from these trees tasted awful. She was working on that, but tree breeding is a slow process. I'd google for news from legitimate apple breeders saying that problem has finally been solved. If you don't find any, I wouldn't trust advertising from tree sellers.

I've seen fruit trees espaliered flat to a wall, where they take up hardly any space.

Do you have your heart set on tree fruits? There are many nice small fruit plants. Some blueberry bushes are so tiny they're practically groundcovers. Strawberries won't shade anything, and they can be very productive. I've heard that there are some raspberries that don't take over your garden, but I've only grown the usual invasive kinds. They were very tasty though.

I have a "North Pole" apple tree in my yard, about 6 years old. It had about 2 dozen apples on it last year. They are tangy and have a good apple flavor, but not as crisp as the ones that I like the most.

It seems to be disease free, since 2 other trees in my yard contracted fire blight and this one did not. It is planted in the ground.

Even though it is columnar, it still needs pruning to maintain shape, both the short branches, and the top. Last year it reached about 10 feet tall, and I could no longer reach the top. It was about 3 feet wide at the wides point. Still, this is easy, I prune it once late summer and once in winter. A photo after pruning this year is below.

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