Updated on February 3rd, 2026 Posted In: Food & Flowers
Author: Alexandra Campbell

An orchard in the garden? You really do have the space!

‘Laura has an orchard in the garden,’ said my friend, Rosie.

Rosie was referring to her neighbour opposite. Laura lives in a typical Victorian street in the UK. It is mainly terraced or semi-detached houses with narrow gardens around 20ft (7m) wide. A few are double width but none are longer than around 70ft (about 20 metres).

So I was surprised. The gardens in Laura’s street didn’t seem big enough for an orchard. Yet – Rosie said – Laura has 80-100 apple trees in this typical town garden space.

Laura grows dozens of different varieties of apple, side-by-side

How many fruit trees in an orchard?

Officially, the definition of an ‘orchard’ is five trees together.

Laura’s late husband worked at Brogdale, the home of the National Fruit Collection, where he developed new apple varieties. He often brought seedlings home, so Laura now has a garden full of apple trees, many of which aren’t named varieties.

This garden has very high-density planting. The standard advice for planting fan or espalier fruit trees is to plant the trees 8ft/2.5m apart.

If you’re growing your fan, cordon or espalier trees against a wall, you’ll need a fence or wall height of at least 6ft/1.8m.

To grow a high density orchard, you’re advised to dig a trench or large hole when planting the trees. Lots of separate holes will merge into one if you’re planting close together!

Once you have your trench or hole, plant the trees 12″-18″/30cm-45cm apart. Make sure you choose dwarf or semi-dwarf trees. Keep them well watered for the first few summers. And prune them every year. These trees will want to grow!

Experts also say that trees in high density orchards need support. Laura has used posts and wires, but you could also use trellis.

Cordon fruit trees – major space savers

I went to see for myself.  Laura’s 60ft town garden has four rows of closely planted ‘cordon’ apple and crab apple trees, all looking healthy and laden with fruit.

She also manages to fit in a terrace, shed and a small vegetable garden.

Rows of cordon fruit trees in Laura’s back garden. There are about fifteen or twenty cordon trees in each row, all in different varieties.

Cordon fruit trees grow on a single stem, either diagonally or straight up.

A professional orchard near me. It’s a stunning sight in early September, with the cordon-grown apple trees heavy with fruit.

We live in a fruit-growing part of Kent. The older orchards are being grubbed up as they exceed their natural lifespan. They had spreading branches, and were very beautiful.

All the recently planted professional apple orchards are cordon-style, with serried ranks of trees like soldiers on parade.

And from August to October, they are laden with colourful fruit.

Laura’s apple trees grow in rows like her runner beans. They look just as healthy and productive – and would fit into the tiniest garden.

However, you could also use fruit trees in your garden to create privacy, to make a wide, shallow garden feel longer or espalier fruit trees up walls.

Borrow tricks from the professional fruit growers

Looking at Laura’s garden, I realised that the professional fruit grower’s way of growing fruit on cordon trees actually suits small gardens very well.

Maybe you might not want four rows of apple trees down the middle of your garden. But one row as a screen, or along the fence, would be a wonderful way of maximising fruit.

Pippa and James grew this espaliered pear tree as a screen for a window, but it also yields excellent pears. There’s more about trees for screening here.

Cordon trees can be planted 2-3 feet (60-80cms) apart, so even if your garden is just 18ft wide or long, you could plant six cordon fruit trees. You’d have wonderful blossom in spring, and a fabulous harvest in autumn, while taking up very little space.

Although different fruit varies, a cordon tree can yield up to 10kg of apples, so you could grow 60kg of apples a year.

And the trees, so close together, would screen a fence, wall, road or eyesore beautifully. I’m really surprised people don’t do more with fruit trees in design terms.

This shows how closely the apple trees are planted in Laura’s garden.

There’s more advice from top plantsman, Jamie Butterworth here in How to Plant A Tree.

Generally fruit trees benefit from having bare soil or mulch around them, so that they don’t have to compete with other plants for nutrients. But if you are more interested in the ornamental aspect of your garden rather than the fruit harvest, then there are some lovely ideas for ground cover plants around apple trees in 23 stunning ground cover plants.

Which fruit trees are best for an orchard in the garden?

Edible Culture in Faversham specialises in creating orchards of all sizes, including orchards in gardens. So I asked Dave of Edible Culture what ordinary gardeners need to know about planting cordon fruit trees.

‘Firstly, you should buy them on an M9 rootstock’, he advises. This means they won’t grow higher than two or three metres. And cordon trees need to be supported on wires, a fence or a wall.

He also advises choosing spur-fruiting varieties over tip-fruiting varieties. ‘If your fruit grows on the tip, then you’ll be cutting off the fruiting parts when you prune it back,’ he says. With spur-fruiting varieties, the fruit grows on spurs coming off the main stem or trunk.

The RHS have useful advice on identifying spur-bearing apples and pears here.

We grow these spur-bearing ‘Pink Lady’ apples as espaliers to screen a path.

Finally, you need to check whether they need another apple tree near them for pollination. Different varieties will need pollination at different times.

In traditional orchards, farmers often plant crab apple trees with the other fruit trees because they flower at different times from ordinary pear or apple trees. Having fruit trees that flower at different times means that bees will always have a reason to visit your mini home orchard!

What fruit can be grown as a cordon?

According to the RHS, you can grow any fruit with a pip as a cordon, but fruit with stones, such as cherries or plums, are likely to be less successful.

You can also create a home orchard in very little space by using fruit trees as cordons against a wall or trained into interesting espalier shapes as a fence.

Fruit with stones, such as cherries, peaches and plums, can be grown against a wall or fence. These trees do better if trained in a ‘fan’ shape, with the branches trained out from near the bottom of the tree. Indeed, any fruit tree can be grown in a ‘fan’ shape.

Here you can see another way of planting fruit trees at high density. The plants on either side of the path are ‘stepover apples’. These are trained so that their tree height is restricted to about 2ft so you can ‘step over’ them. Often used for edging borders. There are also fruit trees being trained up the wall behind the urn.

Two apple trees trained around an obelisk at the Newt in Somerset. This is another space-saving way of growing dwarf or semi-dwarf fruit trees. Check the eventual tree height before buying.

You can plant fruit trees beside a gate, in a front garden – they don’t have to be in a traditional orchard!

Once you have planted your new trees, it’s important to keep them well watered in the first few summers. After a couple of years, they will get their roots down into the soil, but until then they will need extra help.

If you plant fruit trees too close to a wall, they may not get as much rain as they need, so you may need to keep watering them.

Can you plant a home orchard on a slope?

Yes, you can. However, it’s a good idea to plant your fruit trees either at the top of the slope or in the middle. If you plant fruit trees at the bottom of a slope, they may get more frost or more shade. When you’re walking round your garden first thing in on a cold and frosty morning, see whether some areas seem more frosty than others.

See this post for how to plant on a slope.

You can, in fact, grow almost any plant on a slope, provided that you think about how much sun the slope gets and what plants are suitable for the soil. See sloping garden solutions. It has lots of good sloping garden ideas.

Which are the best fruit trees to buy?

At Edible Culture Dave specialises in selling heritage fruit trees, as well as chemical-free products, supports and solutions. Rather than growing apples or pears you can easily buy in supermarkets, think about supporting a rare variety. It’s an ideal opportunity to grow native fruit trees or discover a variety that’s no longer widely grown.

And if you’re interested in growing apples to make your own cider, this post from bloggers Two Thirsty Gardeners has the best five apples for grow-your-own-cider:

You can even order cordon fruit trees from Amazon (Amazon links are affiliate – you can click through to buy. If you do, I may get a small fee).

You can order a ‘Russet’ cordon apple tree from Amazon, like this ‘Russet’ in our garden.

Read this post to find out more about the best trees for small gardens.

How to care for an orchard in the garden

Caring for fruit trees is like caring for many plants. You can get really involved and knowledgeable, or you can bumble along.

Laura prunes her trees in February, taking them back to the fruiting spurs. And if tendrils snake out during the summer, she just cuts them off.

I once came across some professional fruit pruners in a field. I asked how I should prune my apples. ‘Oh, just cut off the bits you don’t want,’ they said. Hmm…

However, find clear and simple apple tree pruning advice for gardeners in How to Prune An Apple Tree by Chloe Ward.

We have espaliered fruit trees in the garden here, screening the veg bed from the path. All we do is prune them and we don’t add fertiliser. We have a good harvest of apples most years.

Our espaliered apple trees, after their February pruning. The late frost didn’t seem to hurt them. Espaliered fruit trees are also great for smaller gardens.

And I personally don’t spray our fruit trees. We do share a few apples with the odd something-or-other.

And if you want a book on ‘how orchard living can be incorporated into every lifestyle’, try Naomi Slade’s An Orchard Odyssey. James Wong describes it as ‘a practical guide to getting started…even in the tiny modern garden.’

Finally, I’d love to see garden designers incorporate more fruit trees into their urban gardens.

Pin to remember how to create an orchard in your garden:

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