FRUIT TREE SPACING in the suburbs (high-density) 3 Things You Must Consider!

Hi everyone, welcome back to the garden and today I've got one that a lot of people have requested and that is how far away my fruit trees are from each other. So if you've wondered how close together my fruit trees are and you want to put a lot more fruit trees into your garden, then this video is going to be perfect for you. So I thought today we'd take a tape measure, we're going to go take a look around the garden, see how far away my fruit trees are and I'm going to also talk about the three main criteria when deciding how far apart or how close to part each fruit tree. These are super important so you're going to want to get a pen and paper and write them down so you can fill it out for your own garden because spacing and choosing where to plant things is going to be super personal for you, your climate and your goals from the garden. So I'm going to talk about some of my goals about growing high density here in my gardens, but I want this to be helpful for you so let's go and take a look. So the first one is what is your goal? My goal is to create variety. I want to grow as many different fruits as I can and expand my fruiting calendar to be able to come outside and pick fruit 365 days a year and with the limited space that I do have, if I was to abide by correct spacing rules, I would probably only have about 20 fruit trees and that is not going to cut it for my passion, my goals, my big dreams, so we've had to change things up. But yours might be completely different, you may want to have five fruit trees that produce huge abundance, they're your favorite fruits, they're what you want to eat and you want to try and maximize the amount that you can get from them. That's going to take you down a completely different path. So number two is climate. What is your climate like? What are your growing conditions like? Because that's also going to help determine how far apart your trees should be placed. If you are in a hot, dry climate like me, then your main concerns are going to be shade and shelter and protection and trying to reduce the amount of moisture loss. If you are in a climate where it is very wet and very humid, then you might want more focus on spacing to provide airflow, stop bacteria and mildew and mold and any of those sort of diseases that come with damp, wet weather in your garden. So writing down some key factors about your climate and what sort of growing conditions you are in is going to also help you determine how far apart to put your trees. And the third one is the types of trees that you're thinking about planting. Planting something like a dwarf lime tree, a deciduous aprem tree or an avocado or mango tree are completely different types of trees. Something like a dwarf lime is going to have a very different growth rate and size to something like an avocado or a mango. So writing down those types of trees that you want to grow, then we can start filling in the gaps with some of the smaller trees or trees like these deciduous trees that lose their leaves in winter and let light in. We also have trees like my feijo and my guava in between that don't mind a really good haircut each year, so we can keep them compact and fruiting because they also fruit on a lot of the new growth. So cutting them back each year is only going to give me more mulch for the garden to feed my fruit trees and also I'm still going to get a whole lot of fruit. So let's go take a look through the garden and see how far apart my fruit trees are and why I've decided to plant that way. All right, so let's start off with this front fruit tree line. This is one of the first gardens that I established here and the spacing is actually quite particular because my partner measured out the initial fruit trees because he loves straight lines and he wanted them to be evenly spaced. I did try and tell him that they're going to all grow differently and he also didn't know that I was going to be completely taking over the front yard, but that's another story. So the original trees that were in here were the citrus, so we have four citrus along a line of 10 meters and they were evenly spaced at, so my measuring skills are absolutely diabolical, but I'm not a measurer. All right, so roughly eight feet or two and a half meters between these original citrus trees and that is most likely the same all the way down. Now these are dwarf and semi-dwarf trees which I chose to try and keep the size small, keep them manageable, reduce the amount of pruning that I had to do and also be able to fit more trees in. So this is over five years ago, six years ago at this point and the trees are pretty compact still. I don't prune them a lot, I just tip prune them to make them bushier. This orange tree has really taken off the spring, so it has jumped up a huge amount in size, but I would have all of this space free for like six years growing nothing if I hadn't planted in between. So then what I did is I went through and I popped in another tree in between the two trees. So we have the lime tree and then I popped in a feijoa tree and then we've got the blood orange tree. Now the feijoa trees don't mind a good haircut, I can cut this thing back as much as I want and it's still going to keep producing fruit. So having something like that in between my main trees gives me the flexibility of the using the space, but this does mean that I'm going to have to keep it regularly pruned. So being in the garden and pruning trees is something that I don't mind doing. I love doing it, I love being able to produce mulch to then feed the trees as well. This orange tree at this size produces more than enough fruit for me. I don't need to get baskets and baskets of oranges. I'm so happy with getting you know 10 oranges, 10 limes, 10 of everything and of course that is increasing every year. I get a lot more than 10 oranges off this tree now, but this size right here is perfect and I can prune this back if I need to for these other trees here. I then went in with edible ground covers and middle layers to provide moisture protection and also to provide chop and drop. So I cut these back all the time, feed them back to the trees. So I'm utilizing this space here while it's not being used and then I'm cutting it back, feeding it to the trees to then grow these to produce more fruit. Everything in my garden is not also logical, so there are some things that are just wild cards like this mango that I've put in here. Obviously a mango tree gets very big and if you had the space you'd be wanting to give it a lot more room. They also want good airflow. I ran out of space and I really wanted to get these mangoes in the ground. So I've popped this mango in here and I will be pruning it back and just trying to keep it nice and compact. One day if I do have to give it more space, then the feed joer could either be transplanted, grafted onto one of my other trees or moved and then this mango could then take up a bit more of this space. But my plan at the moment is to just keep these really compact and really small, even if that means I only get five to ten mangoes off this tree, I'm completely happy with that because I have other mangoes in other areas as well. So down in here we have a little bit of a custard apple grove and custard apples really like their protection. They're wanting to have more, some more dappled sunlight, some more shade here in Perth. So having them kind of all close together like this is giving them a lot more shade and protection from the wind, from the hot sun. So these ones here we have that is 1.2 meters apart or around four foot and that's the same over here with this peach tree, about four foot or 1.2 meters apart. Now this peach tree loses its leaves in winter so it's letting the light in. These are all deciduous really so they're all asleep in winter and then in summer this has leaves which is going to add a little bit more protection. It's going to add a wind buffer to these two custard apples. So that's where it's important to figure out what types of fruit trees you're looking at. If I was to plant three mangoes four foot apart that is far too close because those four mangoes are going to get really big. They love the sunlight, they're going to be competing for light, competing for space. Whereas things like these custard apples and this peach that are only awake for the summer season and would love some protection from each other then it works out much better. These can also be pruned to keep small. The peach tree is a semi-dwarf so it is going to grow a lot slower. It's not going to get sort of large and in charge really fast. And then behind that, so behind the peach tree we have a guava. Now my guava is a little bit closer so the guava is around 80 to 90 centimetres so it's just under three foot from the guava to the peach. Now the guava is another one that can be completely hacked back. It loves a good haircut, it produces fruit on the new growth so I can cut this right back, still get fruit every year. And the more I cut it the bushier it gets and the more fruit it gets lower down. As long as I'm prepared to keep pruning this and I got so much fruit off this, like a tree this size produced 30 to 40 fruits and they're big fruit which is way more than I need. So you know a guava tree this completely enough fruit for me. Next to it however we do have a troublemaker. So this is a loquat and I did plant that from a seed so it is my fault but a loquat is going to get huge. So a loquat is going to get to be a very big tree and it's also really hardy and really vigorous so it's going to grow really fast even in harsh climate like I have here. So a lot of these other plants here are more going to struggle than thrive because of the harsh hot dry conditions, the lack of rain we have here. So that comes down to my climate as well. I'm not so worried about having a lot of trees close together because they are going to grow a lot slower because of my climate, because of the lack of rain and because also I don't really use synthetic fertilizers so I'm not pushing them to grow. I do a lot of composting, worm farms, chop and drop, mulching. So a lot of that is going to produce a lot slower growing fruit trees because I'm not forcing them with some instant gratification. However something like a loquat or a mulberry they thrive in a lot of different conditions so they are going to be really hard to try and keep small. So that's another one that comes into the what type of fruit tree it is. All right so down here we have my avocado tree. So this is my linda avocado. Now avocados are one of the trees that are going to take up a lot more space, they're going to need a lot more airflow and a lot more room in the garden. Obviously things that I just don't I just don't have the spare space. If I had the spare space I would be giving this avocado more like 12 foot between everything but I don't so I could either give it less room or not have it and I really wanted it. So that's another decision making process that I go through is like either I could keep it in a pot which I don't like growing in pots it's too hot and dry here and I like to go away a lot so that also is another factor my lifestyle. So having things in the ground is a lot safer for me so I could either have it in a pot which I don't want I could give it less space than ideal or I could not have it so obviously I went with less space than ideal. The other thing is I have this tree and a lot of my fruit trees on the southern side of my annual veggie patch so the sun is going to come across here so these trees along here are not going to shade out any part of my veggie patch. Now I have this tree let me see probably only three foot pretty much three foot which is 80 centimeters so just under a meter away from the raised garden beds obviously not ideal would love to have it way further away but I just don't have the space so a few things that I have done to help with that is that I have kept this pruned really low so it starts branching out one foot from the ground so I'm starting to get flowers and all these branches here at a really low height so my plan is to keep these trees nice and compact I want to be able to reach the fruit I don't want to be having to get ladders out for all of my fruit trees to be able to net the fruit bag the fruit or pick the fruit so keeping my fruit trees where I can reach the fruit is also going to allow me to have more space so this tree I envision getting you know to maybe two meters 2.5 meters max in height and the tree behind it that could end up getting overshadowed is my mandarin tree so I bought that mandarin tree as part of my original four fruit trees in this 10 meter strip I paid $25 for it over you know five six years ago and I don't love the fruit so I specifically put this avocado tree here so that in the future if I do end up removing the mandarin tree then this avocado could then take up some of space there and I've done that with a lot of my fruit trees I have purchased most of them for the cheapest price the smallest tree you know $25 $30 for a really small young plant obviously saved money it's also meant that I can prune them from a young age and if later on down the track I decide I don't love them or I want to move them I don't feel that anxiety or that stress because I didn't spend a whole lot of money on that tree I've got my money's worth out of that tree already and if I could move it or if I could transplant it graft it put it somewhere else then awesome but if it ends up as mulch $25 over you know five or six years isn't a huge problem if for example you were paying $150 for a tree or more for a more mature tree and you're wanting to put it in a spot and you want to leave it there because you know obviously you don't want to lose the the tree the money all of that has gone into that tree then it's going to be a very different scenario and sometimes fruit trees are just too hard to keep small like this cutting grown mulberry I removed from the backyard I got fruit off this it created shade mulch for over five years and then it was just time to replace it with something else I'm not worried about my gardens being right from the start the perfect layout the perfect spacing so my garden's always changing there's always something new something being removed something being added all right so next to my avocado tree we have behind it um we have the mandarin tree which potentially one day might come out we also have a feijoa tree so the feijoa tree is 1.4 meters 1.4 meters or four and a half foot so like I said with the other feijoa we can prune this back we can um manipulate it use it for shade for wind protection for fruit you can see it's starting to produce flowers so all of these branches are going to be loaded in flowers at you know one foot off the ground um and they produce a whole lot of fruit on a small tree so keeping this small I'm still going to get a lot of fruit off it and I also have four trees therefore I'm going to get plenty of feijoas and then next to it here which is probably the same distance again is a papaya that I planted from seed and transplanted so I moved this from another area of the garden it might not survive who knows but it cost me nothing I've got a bunch of them that I've planted from seed so that's another good one to fill in the gaps in between is by planting things from seed or from cuttings so you can utilize the space while you have it but then if later on down the track this avocado is taking up the space I'm not going to be devastated that my seed grown papaya has to be removed other side of this avocado tree is where we have the peach and I'd say this is about a meter I don't know there's more 1.3 meters um between this avocado and this peach tree and again this peach tree loses its leaves so it lets the light in in winter for this avocado tree and in summer it's got some leaves and this avocado tree would love some wind protection and some sun protection from any hot afternoon sun so having deciduous fruit trees in between evergreen fruit trees is another way that you can fill in the gaps and plant more fruit trees because they are taking up different amounts of light and letting light in during the winter time when this avocado tree would love more light now my biggest fruit trees in this garden are going to be my avocados and my mangoes so how far away are they from each other um let's have a look so we've got my linda avocado over here so between my mango here and my linda avocado we have 12 and a half feet or 3.8 meters so that's a decent amount of space and those are the trees that I want to give the maximum amount of space that I can so I have another mango down the other end and then I have another avocado on that end that are a little bit closer together but I've tried to space those out as much as I can because avocados and mangoes are my like dream crop so if I had if I had to reduce the amount of trees here in the garden then I would be wanting to have avocados and mangoes things like these custard apples and my stone fruit much more easily transplant stone fruit I can also graft this onto other stone fruits I have throughout the garden because grafting is another way that you can add more varieties in onto one tree so say we get you know another five years down the track 10 years down the track and I'm struggling to keep my avocado and my mangoes smaller my backup plan is that things like these custard apples and during winter I could transplant them or I could graft them onto some of the seed ones I've grown or onto other trees in other parts of the garden so that is one of the reasons that I have my bigger long-term crops as far away from as possible from each other and those are things that aren't going to want to be transplanted avocados are really hard to transplant they don't want to be moved so you really want to find a home in the garden that is going to be a long-term home so coming up with some of those backup plans of what you could do if this avocado needs more space is a really good idea so in terms of number three in which fruit tree we're talking about a lot of our deciduous trees like our apples our nectarines and our peaches they like to have multiple trees for cross pollination so you are going to want to have two different varieties to help with that but you can also plant them in the same hole so that takes up a lot less space as well so when you're planting them in the same hole you want to plant them at least you know one foot apart and have them facing outward so you want the grass to be facing outward so the trees grow out like that and then you're just going to have to prune the middle section to keep that nice and clear so the branches aren't rubbing on each other but you can plant two trees in one hole so those people that are worried about space you know you can get really creative with it it's all about taking calculated risks and if you are experimenting then going with you know the smaller fruit trees the less costly fruit trees is going to allow you to feel more comfortable in experimenting you know putting in a few hundred dollars worth of trees and packing them in too tightly and not knowing how to prune them could end up in a less desirable outcome so that's another reason that I like to choose smaller fruit trees younger fruit trees also as well younger fruit trees haven't been sitting around in a nursery getting root bound so I also always opt for younger plants compared to a more established expensive plant for those reasons so you may get fruit quicker on a bigger more mature plant but it's going to cost you a lot more money it's probably been in the same pot for far too long the roots will be wrapped around and long term you're probably going to end up with less desirable results than if you were to plant a young fruit tree and go down the patient's route so then we have my short-term crops that I can so I can start getting fruit quickly also taking up that space while I wait for my main fruit trees to grow so here we have a mango and so that's going to take quite a few years to get nice and big so in between I've planted a banana now this banana will eventually give me fruit it is also going to send off side pups that I could move to other areas of the garden and then if this mango starts to get too big I could chop this whole banana out and give it the space here now a lot of people are worried about planting fruit trees too close together and then stealing nutrients from each other so that is also something to consider is that I'm constantly inputting more mulch more chop and drop to feed my trees I am is not a sit and forget type of thing it also means that my fruit trees are going to grow a lot slower so that 10 meter fruit tree long line I have around along the front there that has grown probably a lot slower than if I was to have the trees spaced further apart and supplement their nutrition a lot more but again that's coming back to my personal preference I want to grow things in a certain way I don't want to be inputting a lot of synthetic fertilizers into my garden so I'm going more of a natural route by growing my mulch by feeding my trees with compost and worm castings rather than forcing the growth so again that's something that is more personal to you and how you want to garden and things like bananas and papayas you can quite easily get them and start growing all of these things in between and experimenting with high density without the added stress of cost now I've also found growing in harsh conditions like here in Perth where it's hot and dry having things really densely populated and planted close together doesn't just steal nutrients from each other they're all working they're all using up different types of nutrients from different levels and they're also providing mulch so I chop them back feed them back into the soil like this is all going to get cut back and laid down to feed the trees in here it's also helping to reduce the moisture loss because the ground is covered and over time with me pruning and cutting back these things I'm going to be adding more and more layers and more and more fiber into the ground so this is going to get a lot more drought tolerant it's going to feed the trees for a lot longer so my goal really is to pack it full of as much different types of plants as possible to take up that space to then be able to chop it back and drop it back into the gardens and going with a whole different type of diversity so here I've got a native plant behind that we've got the avocado we've got the Queensland arrowroot and we've also got things like pomegranate which are deciduous so this is going to lose its leaves in winter let the light in over here we've got another pomegranate which is deciduous let the light in we've got things that like more shelter in here my tropicals like my starfruit and my soursop also got the aprium which is going to drop its leaves and let light in so planting quite diversely with different plants like that is also helping me to get more in a smaller space and provide more green material and mulch for my gardens to therefore feed my fruit trees so my goal is to be able to come out to my gardens and harvest fruit 365 days a year and be able to try all these different exotic fruits that I can't buy at the shop or that I've always dreamt of growing like you know growing up in New Zealand I never thought about growing mangoes and starfruit and all of these things which you can actually do and it's one of my biggest passions and things that lights me up is all the different types of fruit that you can grow trying new fruit trees and just being able to come out and wander through the garden so I'm constantly in my garden it is not only my biggest passion but it's also now my job my career so I'm not worried about having to maintain my garden come out and prune things I actually like really enjoy pruning my fruit trees because it means that I've got more material to feed back to them to then produce more fruit so that's the way that I like to look at it I hope that my garden is never finished I constantly want to be able to come out and do something and that's why I'm always struggling with running out of room because I don't want my garden to be finished I don't want it back to be as you know all the fruit trees that I can have and then move on I want to always be adding new varieties and trialing out new things and experimenting with new things so over time my garden has got more and more high density and that is probably going to continue as well utilizing the climate that I have to experiment to grow to try all the things I am producing more than enough fruit on each fruit tree for me because realistically this garden is for me so growing what I like to eat so my high density strategy didn't happen overnight and it happened naturally and I've just been adding things to my garden one step at a time and always just thinking about a few years in the future what is my backup plans if this gets too big also researching the plants knowing what sort of root structures they have looking at the wants and needs of the plants and some of the benefits like the fact that they lose their leaves or they don't lose their leaves and then also researching the root structure excuse me it's quite loud also looking into the different root structures so if you are going to be planting something next to a driveway or next to a pool definitely have a look at the types of root structures because all fruit trees have different types of roots so feijoas have really shallow feeder roots like fine hairs things like mulberry have very very intense roots so those are something that you do not want to plant right next to pavers or anything like that because they are going to spread their roots really really far meters and meters and they are very hard to dig up so write a list of all the fruit trees that you want and then you can go through and maybe research a little bit of those but check out this video if you want to see some of the fruit trees I would avoid planting in the ground or at least giving them a lot more space so I hope this video helps I hope it's answered a few of your questions if you have any more drop them in the comments I'm always up to answer your questions or make more videos on things that you want to see more of in my garden