fruit for east-facing wall

15 years ago

Hi everyone,

We are putting in a 4' tall East-facing retaining wall and hope to espalier some type of dwarf fruit tree (citrus, apple, pear, etc., 4-6' tall) along its width. The wall gets a few hours of morning light, then mid-day filtered light, followed by afternoon shade. Located in the East Bay hills (Richmond, CA) with sun, fog and wind. We realize full-sun trees probably won't be happy, but are there any that might work/produce for us? Or are we nuts? Suggestions please. Thanks!

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Comments (4)

xentar_gw
15 years ago
I've had pears, peaches, figs, persimmons, and citrus in close to a full shade area before, and all of them have produced.

With that said, my persimmon tree actually grew out toward the sun so much until it was ready to fall over. The roots were coming out of the ground. We had to do some severe pruning on the tree or it would have fallen down completely in the next couple years.

Pears - our pineapple pear has produced in the shade for many years as well, and although it hasn't fallen over, it still tends to want to grow toward the sunlight, making it look fairly ugly over the years.

About 8 of the citrus trees we have are planted in full or partial shade, shaded by the house, oak trees, bald cypress, river birch, and red maples, and they seem to do well with very little pruning.

The peach tree we had produced well for many years, but it was always kind of leggy in the shade.

Last, our fig trees have always grown in a good amount of shade, and they usually have a good crop 8 or 9 out of ten years or so. They don't have a huge problem with the shade because of being heavily pruned every year. So, they don't have a chance to go leggy.
aioli
Original Author
15 years ago
Xentar, thank you for all the feedback! Perhaps a fig and some type of citrus is the way to go. Do you know of any specific dwarf fig and citrus that are more shade tolerant?
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xentar_gw
15 years ago
Dwarf figs? I haven't heard of any myself, but when you do your yearly pruning, they can be kept at whatever height you want. You can trim them to around 6 or 8' easily with no problems. Then again, I live in the South east, and our fig options are limited to Celeste, Brown Turkey, Black Mission, Green Ischia, and maybe one or two more, due to the humidity. There are probably many other options available to you.

Dwarf citrus... About any citrus can be put on dwarf rootstock, but dwarf citrus in generally will be 2-4x the price of regular citrus, especially if you have to order it online.
softmentor
15 years ago
4 foot is a mighty small height for a fruit tree and all the more so for espalier. Definitely would have to be a full dwarf not a semi-dwarf tree. Kumquat on flying dragon root stock may be a good option. I have that on an east wall and it's doing well. At about 7 years old it's only 4 foot now.