Dwarf Fruit Tree Varieties

Apple

• The Granny Smith dwarf variety apple grows only 8 to 10 feet high, yet produces the same tart, crisp apples you have grown to expect from this classic cooking and eating apple. The fruit of the dwarf Granny Smith is ready for harvest mid-fall and begins producing 3 to 5 years after planting.

  Fuji apples are known for being crisp, juicy, sweet and aromatic, and are a favorite for fresh eating. The dwarf Fuji tree combines all the qualities you would expect into an 8 to 10 foot high package that starts producing fruit in 3 to 5 years.

Stone Fruit

• Cot-n-candy apricot is actually a plum-and-apricot hybrid that looks like an apricot but has an original taste and texture. As an early-ripening dwarf variety, cot-n-candy grows 12 to 15 feet tall and requires full sun. Expect cot-n-candy to produce fruit in 3 to 5 years after is it planted.

  Growing only 10 to 15 feet high, "spice zee nectaplum" is a sweet and spicy hybrid that produces fruit with pink skin and white flesh. Spice zee is also an attractive ornamental tree that will provide three-season interest. This dwarf fruit tree is an early bloomer that will bear fruit 3 to 5 years after planting.

  Garden gold peach is tiny in the world of trees, stretching only 5 to 6 feet high at maturity, but it is a vigorous genetic dwarf that will produce nearly half a bushel of large, freestone peaches every year. Garden gold bears fruit late in the fall, 3 to 5 years after planting.

Citrus

• The list of dwarf citrus trees is a long one and includes many exotic specimens such as the Moro blood orange that grows 7 to 10 feet tall and produces a small, berry-flavored orange with purplish flesh and the Kaffir lime that is prized in Thai cooking. The fruit of the Kaffir is dimpled and looks somewhat like a dark green golf ball. The tree is a diminutive 5 feet high and can be grown indoors.

  The dwarf "Oro Blanco'" grapefruit is a white-fleshed variety that is much sweeter than most grapefruits. It grows 7 to 10 feet high and provides large, fragrant blossoms in the spring. The fruit of the oro blanco ripens in the winter and the tree starts producing around three years after planting.

  The Owari Satsuma Mandarin orange is a hardy dwarf variety of Mandarin whose candy-sweet fruit ripens in late fall before the first frost. Satsuma grows to a height of 10 to 12 feet and prefers full sun. Like many dwarf fruit trees, it can be planted in a container and brought indoors during the winter. Satsuma Mandarin bears fruit around three years after it is planted.