The Actual Size of Dwarf, Semi-Dwarf, and Full-Size Fruit Trees

These days, with the local food movement being what it is and the drive for self-sufficiency on the rise, lots of people want to plant fruit trees at home. It’s a great idea, and with the right-sized trees, having a home orchard is within just about every homeowner’s reach.

Even so, there are some important considerations growers should check into before investing too much into that food forest. Firstly, it’s imperative to find out which types of fruit are well-suited for your climate. Then, it’s going to be very useful to understand—get out and measure it—the space you have for the trees.

Luckily, modern growers have different sizes of trees to consider. Dwarf trees can work in compact spaces, semi-dwarf trees are suitable for suburban lawns, and standard trees are the choice for most production. But, let’s get more specific.

The Actual Size of Dwarf Fruit Trees

Dwarf fruit trees are the smallest varieties available. They tend to grow somewhere between 8-10 feet tall and wide. They also obviously produce much less fruit than the larger semi-dwarf and standard varieties. For example, a dwarf apple tree maxes out at about 4 bushels whereas a semi-dwarf might yield 10 bushels and a standard might give twice that.

There are other benefits to growing dwarf trees beyond the size:

• Dwarf fruit trees tend to produce fruit faster than larger varieties. (They reach maturity more quickly.)
• They can also be grown in large pots so that they can be moved around. This opens up the opportunity to grow trees from warmer climates because they can be brought indoors during the winter.

The Actual Size of Semi-Dwarf Fruit Trees

Semi-dwarf trees are the happy medium between dwarf and standard trees. They typically reach between 12-15 feet with an equivalent spread. These trees produce a lot of fruit, more than most families will eat. A bushel of apples is about 50 pounds of apples, and one of these trees can provide up to 10 bushels. That’s over 1000 apples.

The benefits of semi-dwarf trees are that…

• …they are small enough to fit in most suburban lawns but large enough to provide huge harvests. They give the maximum yield for the square footage used to grow them.
• …they still produce relatively quickly compared to standard trees.

The Actual Size of Standard Fruit Trees

Different fruit trees will grow to different sizes, so it’s hard to give a standard answer for how big all fruit trees get. However, the general size of full-grown standard fruit trees is somewhere in the 18-25-foot range.

That said, peach trees and nectarine trees tend to stay a bit smaller, almost the size of semi-dwarf trees. Pears might grow to be 18-20 feet tall, but they usually have a spread that only reaches a little over half of that.

Standard trees will generally yield about twice what semi-dwarf varieties do and four or five times that of dwarf varieties. The problem with standard fruit trees is that they are much more laborious to harvest from. They are usually reserved for commercial growers.

Keep the Spread in Mind

When designing a home orchard, typically the height of the fruit tree is less consequential than the spread. It’s important to provide adequate spacing between trees so that they don’t grow into one another. It’s very easy to forget how big a semi-dwarf tree will get after a few years and put the young trees far too close together.

So, remember that, if a tree is going to be 15 feet wide, and it’ll be growing next to a tree that is also 15 feet wide, then they should be planted at least 15 feet apart so that they aren’t eventually growing into one another.

For those with a large yard, having more and varied semi-dwarf fruit trees would be more productive than planting one or two standard varieties. For those with smaller spaces, it might be worth considering a couple of semi-dwarf trees in the yard and garden and perhaps some potted dwarf fruit trees (or even miniature) for the patio area.

Regardless, there should be fruit trees that’ll work for growing at home.

Related Content:

• A Quick Guide to Standard Fruit Trees Grown in the USA
• 10 Unconventional Fruit Trees for the Backyard Orchard
• 7 Winter Care Tips for Fruit Trees
• Why You Should Plant Fruit Trees in the Yard and How to Do It
• All About Plum Trees: Often Overlooked but Always Enjoyed

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