You can plant a Patio Orchard with Dwarf Fruit Trees perfect for small gardens and spaces. Many choices of dwarf fruit trees that do well in containers.
Growing a conventional orchard, no matter how small requires land space because fruit trees take up space. Most city dwellers do not have the luxury of big yards. At most, one can only have two or three fruit trees in the yard and it will already be pretty crowded. Thankfully, today dwarf/miniature fruit trees are more easily available and these trees can be grown successfully in containers right on your patio. Many of these fruit trees are self fertile/fruitful which means pollination can occur with pollen from the same tree. Now, that’s a wonderful thing!
Our Patio Orchard
We have shown you our Miniature Peach Trees and 6-in-1 Espalier Apple Tree growing in containers on our patio. I guess you can say we were hit by the Patio Orchard bug because we have expanded our collection of several other fruit trees we found while shopping for plants to populate our new backyard these past two months since the weather started warming up.
The thought of having a mini orchard in our backyard was very exciting and we had fun picking out each dwarf fruit tree. Some of the trees (like the two above) came with fruits which made it even more interesting and exciting. We are thrilled that the peaches and apples have grown in size. Others are small trees but the hope is that they will grow and bear fruits in a couple of years. Whatever the case, if you are into gardening, it can be something fun to do.
With that said, we are excited to show you the other fruit trees in our little Patio Orchard.
Dwarf Stella Sweet Cherry and Santa Rosa Plum
Dwarf stone fruit trees are good candidates for Patio Orchards because they are more easily available. We were delighted to find this self fertile Stella Red Cherry and Santa Rosa Plum tree both at our local DIY store. These are taller trees than the Miniature Peach Trees and so we decided to place them on the rock apron next to the concrete patio. That way also they can be hooked up to the irrigation system we have running there.
Initially, we put them in round pots but they kept toppling over and so we re-potted them into square pots which worked so much better because they are more stable. The winds here in Colorado are strong and it gets windy most afternoons.
The cherry tree has one precious cherry, just one for this year. Please don’t ask me who or what I am going to do with this one beautiful cherry because I haven’t yet decided but you will definitely hear about it. 🙂 Unfortunately, there are no fruits on the plum tree.
Fresa and Berried Treasure Red Strawberries
We have two varieties of strawberries in this galvanized steel tub. They are Fresa with white flowers and Berried Treasure Red with red flowers. I see some strawberries on the Fresa but not yet on the other variety. They are smaller plants and will need to grow a little more. We are sure we’ll get some homegrown strawberries later in the summer. Definitely looking forward to that.
Einset Seedless Grape, Orange Tree, and Meyer Lemon Tree
We have had previous experience growing grapes more than a decade ago in our first home here in Colorado. They did fairly well with so much sunshine here and so we were eager to grow them again. Grape vines are not easy to find and fewer nurseries carry them. Einset grapes are early maturing and said to have a wonderful strawberry-like flavor. Can’t wait!
This time we decided to grow them in this Galvanized Steel Tub which we like very much. It is big, deep, and has handles which makes it easy for us to move it around. Ro-Ri San also constructed a trellis for the two grape plants so that they can climb. We may not get grapes this year but hopefully we can use the leaves for making dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) which are delicious.
This season the DIY stores are selling orange and lemon trees. The good thing about citrus trees is that most are self fertile which makes them excellent candidates for the Patio Orchard. These mini citrus trees seem to be rather popular and tend to go fast. Ro-Ri San managed to pick up one of each for us to add to our Patio Orchard. These trees will have to stay indoors once the weather turns cold. At present they are quite small and so this Twin Galvanized Steel Buckets work really nicely to house and carry them around in.
Fruit Trees in our Patio Orchard
To date we have 7 different fruit trees, 2 grape vines, and 4 strawberry plants in our Patio Orchard. They are all small right now because this is only our first year growing them. Hopefully, we will have them for years to come and they will bear lots of fruits. We are still looking for a dwarf avocado tree and fig tree which we read grow well in containers. After that we should be done. 😉
As the season progresses, we will give you updates on how these dwarf fruit trees are doing. Please remember to check back every once in a while for updates and new pictures. If you are growing your own mini orchard, we would love for you to share them with us on our Facebook Page. Until the next update, Happy Gardening!
Similar Products used in this Patio Orchard
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18 Inch Veranda 5 Gallon Box Planter, Black
18 Inch Veranda 5 Gallon Box Planter, Cement
Galvanized Steel Tub, 15 Gal
Galvanized Metal Small Twin Desktop Planter
100 Pcs 6 x10cm Plastic Plant T-type Tags Nursery Garden Labels
Rain Bird T22-250S Drip Irrigation 1/4″ Blank Distribution Tubing, 250′ Roll, Black
Rain Bird Drip Irrigation Spot Watering Dripper/Emitter, 2 Gallon Per Hour, 30-Pack
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