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Fruit & Orchards

Zone 7 fruit tree for potager?

17 years ago

I'd like to plant a small fruit tree as the centerpiece of my potager...I have previously used a bay laurel standard, but am tired of taking it in every winter. (Ditto eugenia standard.) If you please, what small (dwarf?) fruit tree can I grow year-round in zone 7??

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Comments (3)

jellyman
17 years ago
jbh:

A good choice might be an Asian persimmon. Several varieties of this tree remain very small, have a good natural shape, and the leaves are shiny and quite beautiful. Persimmons ripen late in the season, and hang on the tree until the cold comes.

I just put in 3 of these trees this spring from Womack Nursery in DeLeon, TX, but they ship bareroot and my trees arrived here in March. If you would still like to plant this spring, look at Edible Landscaping in central Virginia, which ships potted trees and carries several Asian persimmon varieties that remain quite small. Call them for advice on which variety would be best suited to your purposes. Shipping costs are higher for containerized trees, but you don't have much choice this late in the season, and you should be able to find what you want by talking to EL proprietor Mike McConkey.

An attractive alternative might be an apricot on a dwarfing rootstock like St. Julian (Burnt Ridge carries Puget Gold on this rootstock), but again you are up against the end of the bareroot shipping season.

You could plant something like an apple on a dwarfing rootstock, but this would get you into pollination issues with a singleton tree. Check out the persimmon. I expect to be able to grow these quite well, although I am on the Northern edge of my Virginia zone 7. Of course not all zone sevens are exactly alike. Where is yours?

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
jbh501
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks, Don. I am on Martha's Vineyard, so we have kind of a coastal thing here. I'll look into the persimmon. Thanks for the lead.
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