A Common questions I get is, “How many fruit trees can I fit into an area?” and my answers, inevitably, is alway varied.

When I design an orchard I like to think of the whole space as being a garden. Rather than traditionally setting out rows of orchard trees in the lawn, I like to define garden beds. I like to have curves rather than straight lines. I define the edges of the boundaries & work inwards (see picture).

The garden beds will then enable you to add fruit trees into this system as well as having your garden, be it flowers or natives or ground covers as an understory.

The pro’s of this design:

1. Your orchard will have far less maintenance purely by mowing designated pathway’s.

2. It is better for the trees as they have less competition. Grasses are a huge competition for fruit trees as grass is the hungriest & will rob your fruit trees of food & moisture.

3. More aesthetically pleasing to the eye as it looks more like a garden. Just go for a wander through a park & you’ll see garden beds with plants/trees of all types incorporated within big expanses of lawn.

4. You can plant more fruit trees. This design allows fruit trees to be planted at closer spacing’s as there is no mowing in between them. A lot of us have experienced getting smacked in the face by a tree branch whilst trying to mow around them. Not something you’d like to happen often!  Also no weed eater necessary which also saves a tree from being ringbarked. A common error unfortunately.

Traditional spacing’s if I were to lay out fruit trees in rows would be 5 metres apart, 4m for citrus & 6 metres between rows.

If I am planting into a bed system then trees can be spaced 3-4 metres apart & 3m for citrus. The important thing to note: they will need an annual prune which is good for keeping the tree in a nice form. Easy harvesting & lessens fungal diseases etc.

If tighter spacings are adopted the thing that you run into is a nursery situation where each tree is fighting for light & food thus resulting in a leggy spindly type of growth pattern coming from the tree & will not fruit to it’s optimum.

Next time we will talk hillside gardening………………

Benji & Laura Woodman