Plant a Fruit Tree

Buying and planting a fruit tree is an easy and satisfying way to enhance any size yard or garden.

A fruit tree in a black five gallon container siting on the ground. — A peach tree ready to be planted into the ground.

Leaving a Legacy

We have lived in three different house over the last 15 years and have planted a variety of fruit trees in every single one of them. There is something so satisfying about a fruit tree. To leave a legacy that bears fruit for generations to come is almost cathartic. Planting a fruit tree is an easy way to enhance your property and provide a bounty for your family. Just be prepared to be sad when you move and leave them behind!

A man standing next to an aisle of fruit trees for sale in a nursery. — My husband picking out a lime tree.

Find Your Gardening Zone

Step one is to figure out what you can grow in your particular climate, or zone. I like this site for looking up what gardening zone you are in. This will determine what types of fruit trees grow best in your particular zone. I am in zone 9B in Southern California and live where you can grow lots of different fruit trees.

A sign that says plums surrounded by black containers of fruit trees. — This local nursery had a good variety of fruit trees for sale.

Search What Grows Well in Your Zone

A simple google search “which fruit trees grow well in zone …” should get you started. Where I live in SoCal you can’t go wrong with citrus and avocado. Stone fruit trees also do well in my zone. We planted a peach tree recently, although they are a little high maintenance for beginners. I would also add to your search “what is easy to grow” where you live. You don’t want to start with a fussy or disease prone variety like the peach for your first fruit tree.

A man in a blue shirt with blue jeans holding a walkie talkie radio. — A friendly nursery worker offering his advise about what type of lime tree we should get.

Shop Your Local Nursery

If all you have is your local Home Depot or Lowes garden center then that can work just fine. If you are able to locate a smaller, family run plant nursery then that’s even better. They will usually have someone on staff who can offer a wealth of knowledge about which variety of fruit trees do well in the local area. This is how we learned about one of our favorite varieties, the green gage plum, from a local nursery horticulturist. They can also sell certain types of fruit trees that the bigger chains don’t carry. These are often grown locally and therefore will do better in your climate.

A man in a backwards hat putting together a wire gopher basket using hardware cloth. — My husband making a DIY gopher basket using hardware cloth.

Use A Wire Gopher Basket

The saddest day of my gardening life was when we lost several trees to gophers. They can eat the entire root ball out from under a fruit tree in no time. Their favorite trees to eat are fig and apple. It is terrible to watch months and even years of effort lost from one tiny creature. Now we use a simple wire basket to protect all our fruit trees from gophers. Your area may have their cousin variety, the vole. My husband likes to make his own baskets out of hardware cloth. They are simple to cut and wire together. Just make them a tiny bit larger than the container the tree comes in.

Support Your Young Sapling

After you have decided on which type of fruit tree to buy you will need to purchase a few supplies. Your young tree will likely be fairly small and may be susceptible to wind damage during any strong storms. You will need to protect its trunk from breakage by using two wooden plant support stakes. Simply stake these on either side of the tree and use some plastic stretch plant ties to support from each side. Just don’t make these too tight. A little bit of movement during windy days encourages the tree to grow its roots deeper. The supports are just there to keep the tree from blowing over so much that it snaps.

A fruit tree tied to two wood stakes with green plastic plant ties.

Planting Your Young Fruit Tree

I don’t think I need to give too much explanation here on digging a hole and planting your tree. There is just one key thing to be aware of. After you have dug your hole I recommend doing a soil drainage test. You’ll need to fill the hole up with water and see how fast it drains, or percolates out. If you can fill it up with water and it stays full then you have a big problem. You want your soil to drain quickly so that your tree roots won’t rot. If there is too much clay in your soil it will hold water, like a pot. You can try to amend the soil by adding a layer of gravel at the bottom and mixing some sand into the dirt. Or you can try to find a different location to plant. Lastly, keep in mind you will always want to plant your fruit trees where they will get full sun.

A peach tree just planted in the ground being watered.

Protect Your Tree From Pests

You will need to find out what diseases and pests your chosen fruit tree is prone too and proactively treat for those if you can. For your first tree I would try and pick something that is not prone to many diseases. The peach tree, for example, is almost guaranteed to battle a fungal disease called peach leaf curl. We are dealing with this right now even! We didn’t know at the time that you are supposed to do a copper treatment before any sign of disease and now only time will tell if our little peach tree will make it. Our plum trees seem to rarely get any diseases. Do your research on organic pest control. Fighting nature with nature is always the way to go.

A root guard gopher wire basket. — You can purchase a wire gopher basket at any nursery that sells fruit trees.

Create A Watering Schedule

Where I live in Southern California only gets around 12 inches of rain a year, and that’s only when we aren’t in a drought. My friends in North Carolina get about 50 inches a year! In fact, they get so much rain they when they plant their gardens in the spring they literally don’t have to water them. It’s a luxury we have never been able to experience. My husband had to set up a weekly watering schedule for our first orchard of fruit trees. He hand watered for years and years before we finally installed an automatic drip water system. We really should’t have waited so long.

An image of an orange tree with the reminder text of when to fertilize. — A handy reminder to fertilize your fruit trees three times a year.

Fertilize Your Fruit Trees Regularly

Fruit trees will generally need to be fertilized around three times a year. This makes sense when you think of a tree as having three different stages in its life. A time for foliage growth and root growth, a time for bearing fruit and a time for rest. If you are a list making or journaling person, try to keep track on paper when you last fertilized. I like to just set a reminder in my google calendar on my phone when I need to remember certain gardening tasks. My husband prefers to write everything down in a little black notebook.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!