Saturn

When I was younger doing door to door sales for some fund raiser, I remember stepping into someone's house and the had a small (4-5' tall) orange tree. Are there miniature varieties of different fruit types? I just happened to think of this out of the blue.

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-l:SATURN:l-

lspichkin

Yes, you're right, there is such a thing as a small fruit tree - usually called "miniature" or "dwarf" fruit trees. They've become more common in the last twenty years and more readily available. You can now grow miniature apple, apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach and even almond trees. Mother Earth News has a nice article about them as well as a list of mail-order sources for these trees.

I went cherry picking with my family earlier this year to a grove of dwarf cherry trees and it was great - easy to reach the fruit (even for my kids) and they were absolutely delicious! There was no loss in flavor at all.

joshuaslocum

Dwarf Fruit Trees are fantastic way to go to small yet experience large.

The term dwarf, in the fruit tree category, applies to fruiting trees that typically do not exceed 6 feet in height and spread. The term dwarf fruit tree doesn’t signify any change in fruit size as virtually all dwarf fruit trees produce normal-size fruit, with most yielding about a fifth as much harvest as a common fruit tree with better flavor and color than the common tree just as Ispichkin says in the follow up post before this one.

these are a WOW!

as detailed on my blog, The Dwarf Fruit Trees Blog, I recommend the Dwarf Meyer Lemon Tree as the best starter or addition small tree.