I used to have an Elephant Heart and a Methely in a spot with more than 50% shade and both did quite well. In fact the EH produced much better fruit there than the one I have now growing in the full sun.

It also depends on your climate. If you are on the Oregon coast it isn't very sunny and so the trees will be less tolerant of shade. In sunny central California they can take a lot of shade since its almost always sunny.

Scott

I live near Portland. The variety I was thinking of is Hollywood or Spencer Hollywood Japanese plum. The plum tree would get filtered afternoon sun because of the large trees nearby. Does this situation sound like it would work? After reading Harvestman's post I'm getting quite hopeful. Jen

If you are enough inland that summer is pretty sunny and not nearly relentless fog you should be fine- but why Hollywood when you could grow something truly delicious?

After more research I've decided to go with a Satsuma and Shiro plum trees instead. Both will be planted in the same hole. Here's a link about this planting method below. I wish I had heard about this method last summer when I was planting my Asian pears and cherry trees. My new plan is to consolidate both my Asian pear trees and both my cherry trees so I will have enough space to plant both the plums in the front yard too. Then I won't even have to worry about the shade issue (my front yard is far sunnier than my back yard). Have you ever tried this method? Jen

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Fruit Trees in Limited Space.

It's been much discussed on this forum and you can easily draw up the topic with some research. Most who have tried this method seem to be pleased with the results. I'm personally not pleased with the lack of any scientific evaluation of this method.

As long as Dave Wilson Nursery is selling thousands of extra trees by touting it I wish they'd spend a little money scientifically investigating relative fruit quality and yeald brought about by this method compared to conventional spacing. That said, from all the positive responses here I think you're safe to pursue this strategy.

I actually started planting 2 peaches per hole a decade before I ever heard about Dave Wilson's big idea. I only did it because I haven't started grafting peaches and I wanted to try so many varieties that it was the only way to have enough space.

Dave Wilson doesn't even claim its their big idea. Ed Lovell of DWN, edlo, used to post in this group years ago and he was always clear about how there were several long traditions of close plantings and use of close roots for dwarfing.

My conclusion on it is that it can work well, but the pruning is not as easy as they make it seem on the DWN website. In the east or other more disease-prone areas you need to do more than thin crossing branches, you need to make sure there is some minimal distance between branches from adjacent trees. Its not that you have to give each tree precisely 1/4 of a circle or 3' of a row, but each variety should have its own space with a 1'+ gap from any one variety's leaf to leaf of a different variety. As far as productivity goes the pruning constraints decrease the productivity, or at least they did for me while I learned how to prune the things. My oldest stands are producing well now but it took me a long time to get them to the right spot.

Scott

The reason I call it DW's big idea is because as far as I know they are the first commercial nursery to push it and did more to publicize the concept than anyone. I don't think any one could claim to be the first person to try it- how would you even know? I've seen plenty of failed attempts at planting trees much too closely together over the years. Summer pruning is an acient practice and has long been known to help dwarf trees. People all over the world must have put the two together many times.

Well I did it. I moved my two cherry trees 20 inches apart as well as my two Asian pears 20 inches apart.(cherries and pears are in seperate locations)Now I have room to plant my 2 plums in my front yard too. For my personal situation even if I get less fruit than I would otherwise it won't be a problem. What I really want is a good variety of differnt types of fruit. Space is a big issue for me so this should work out well. As far as looks go, the trees do look kind of weird. Planting them so close is less pleasing to the eye than normal spacing. I think they'll look less odd when they leaf out, though.

I am 3 miles from the ocean and I have a plum that gets afternoon shade and it's loaded e every Summer.

I have a high density orchard with "hedges" of fruit trees, all generally spaced 3-5 feet apart. I summer prune to keep things sized the way I want - most is on semi-dwarf, I avoid dwarf because I need a vigorous root system that can withstand drought.

Axel

Its tammy from cloudforest. I just ordered a bunch of trees and was planning on planting them 6 feet apart but 3-5 would allow me more. Do you have any pics of your fruit hedge?