You're not running out of space for trees, you're just not using enough columnar trees!

So, I got a bit carried away this year and planted hundreds of plants in my suburban yarden. I've now about three dozen fruit trees, and they'll, most of 'em, be pruned to smaller, more compact sizes. I like dense plantings and mass diversity.

Anyway, after analyzing my space, I've realized I can fit in some columnar trees in quite a few places. So, I'm boutta add 6 or 7 columnar apples to my pre-order for next spring.

Any other columnar fruit, nut, utility , or even simply (heh) beautiful trees that you know about?

Here are a few links to some interesting specimens available (or sold out) online:

https://raintreenursery.com/products/blushing-delight%E2%84%A2-urban%E2%84%A2-columnar-apple-semi-dwarf?variant=32009608429623

https://raintreenursery.com/products/scarlet-sentinel-columnar-apple-semi-dwarf?variant=32009601417271

https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/products/amanogawa-flowering-cherry-tree?_fid=5f1482cd5&_pos=20&_sid=9b8bfc878&_ss=r&variant=42679122493502

https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/products/princeton-sentry-columnar-ginkgo-tree?_fid=21c36999e&_pos=3&_sid=bf8a59ab3&_ss=r&variant=32439520952382

https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/products/emerald-spire-crabapple-tree?_fid=7b7e9a8eb&_pos=1&_sid=550525e88&_ss=r&variant=42269077536830

https://onegreenworld.com/product/white-icicle-columnar-apple-tree/

https://onegreenworld.com/product/crimson-rocket-columnar-peach-tree/

https://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/apple-trees/stark-ultra-spire-apple

https://bowerandbranch.com/products/gladiator-columnar-flowering-crabapple?variant=46890088890522&srsltid=AfmBOor-3qyyA-ZcggMWnF4Ua77r3hEHEtT-JKt4Kk6qt8y805_GVDVYFWk

Do columnar trees take much pruning Chance? Or do they follow a naturally columnar habit?

Nancy Reading wrote:Do columnar trees take much pruning Chance? Or do they follow a naturally columnar habit?

Hi Nancy, so, for the most part, that's what makes them columnar is their naturally upright growth habit. The fruit trees send up a central column and send fruiting spurs out from there.

That's a general description, but some "columnar" trees aren't exactly columnar as a true to definition type, but they grow very compact and upright, simulating the growth habit of true columnar trees.

The latter category require a bit more pruning, but both columnar and columnar adjacent trees require less pruning than standard forms.

Those trees look amazing for folks with a small space.

Sure not the image that I had in mind, though.

8 ft tall and 2 ft wide and imagine them loaded with apples.

I had one a decade or two ago when I lived in Utah and it was an amazing narrow beefy stick with apples growing off of it. They'd make a great visual fence.

Mike Haasl wrote:I had one a decade or two ago when I lived in Utah and it was an amazing narrow beefy stick with apples growing off of it. They'd make a great visual fence.

I'm in Utah. Payson, to be more specific.

I planted a couple of columnar apples last year in a narrow strip between the house and the fence where nothing else would fit. They are doing really well so far, barely any pruning needed. The only downside is pollination, since they flower at slightly different times you need to make sure you have enough varieties that overlap. I stuck three different ones in a row about a metre apart and that seems to be working.

Personally, I happen to believe that over the next couple of decades, we're going to need a lot more City and Urban food production and a book I've been reading strongly promotes the idea of small, productive fruit trees, so that people can have more varieties that ripen at different times of the year.

What the book doesn't do, is describe how I can get to that point starting from seeds straight into the ground. Starting from seed, will give me stronger, deeper roots to protect the tree from droughts and heat waves. If the fruit produced isn't as delicious as the donor seed, I can graft - possibly even graft multiple varieties on one tree, although I've been told and observed myself that some varieties will out-compete the others over time.

The author works for a nursery, so maybe she thinks this info is a trade secret, but I'm sure we've got some permies around who have some good ideas?

I will point out that in rural areas where there is plenty of land, the big benefit of large trees is that the deer can't decimate the whole tree in one night.

Joao Winckler wrote:I planted a couple of columnar apples last year in a narrow strip between the house and the fence where nothing else would fit. They are doing really well so far, barely any pruning needed. The only downside is pollination, since they flower at slightly different times you need to make sure you have enough varieties that overlap. I stuck three different ones in a row about a metre apart and that seems to be working.

Which varieties did you plant?

Jay Angler wrote:Personally, I happen to believe that over the next couple of decades, we're going to need a lot more City and Urban food production and a book I've been reading strongly promotes the idea of small, productive fruit trees, so that people can have more varieties that ripen at different times of the year.

What the book doesn't do, is describe how I can get to that point starting from seeds straight into the ground. Starting from seed, will give me stronger, deeper roots to protect the tree from droughts and heat waves. If the fruit produced isn't as delicious as the donor seed, I can graft - possibly even graft multiple varieties on one tree, although I've been told and observed myself that some varieties will out-compete the others over time.

The author works for a nursery, so maybe she thinks this info is a trade secret, but I'm sure we've got some permies around who have some good ideas?

I will point out that in rural areas where there is plenty of land, the big benefit of large trees is that the deer can't decimate the whole tree in one night.

Jay, you are correct. Suburban and especially urban food production is a massive gap in our food resilience web. Fortunately, the amount of resources available in a suburban or urban setting, for free or for cheap, is also a massive underutilized resource.

The amount of organic matter available to feed your soil (and your chickens for that matter) is, practically speaking, infinite - food waste at restaurants, coffee grinds from coffee shops, manure from the family with the horses in the area, green waste from neighbors' yards, etc... imIf you're cool seeming like a bit of a weirdo, you can create relationships with your local business, churches, and neighbors to take their discarded treasure off their hands. SOMETIMES, they'll even pay you to do it.

Same thing with fill dirt, urbanite (broken slabs of concrete), construction scrap (I built a 25'L x 12'W x 10'H greenhouse, and all the growing spaces within - which were innovative and extensive - entirely from construction scrap I harvested during my days in the trades), fencing, and a million other useful things.

Your local classifieds/P2P marketplaces have almost everything you want/need to build, expand, improve your systems at a fraction of the cost that purchasing from a retailer would require.

AND, you can expand your growing range to the medians, margins, parks, edges of unmanaged land/wilderness areas, empty lots and other underused growing spaces in your vicinity to improve food security for yourself and your neighbors. Guerilla gardening for the win (I have a fun, lightly illegal, guerilla gardening food forest project I've been working on for a couple of years which will deliver thousands of pounds of food to my community by around year 10, and which is also where I plant out most of my fruit tree seedlings as I continue my efforts to create maximum utilitarian novelty while working to produce landrace veggies and locally adapted tree cultivars).

All this is to say, Jay, that you're correct in identifying a major gap in the broader food system, but (as usual) the solution to the problem lies within the problem itself.

I have been planting these between 2013 and 2016. Today, none is still alive. Other trees, still live, heavily pruned, even at the knee height for the main trunk.

Currently, I use columnar trees only in containers, for short-lived setups.

Richard Gorny wrote:I have been planting these between 2013 and 2016. Today, none is still alive. Other trees, still live, heavily pruned, even at the knee height for the main trunk.

Currently, I use columnar trees only in containers, for short-lived setups.

Interesting.

What's your experience been with the ruthless pruning? I've been curious about this approach.

Chance Lunceford wrote:
What's your experience been with the ruthless pruning? I've been curious about this approach.

I have found a book on this topic years ago, I was very sceptic at the start, but it surely worked for me.
I wanted to have a few fruit trees close to the house, where small kids can pick up  fruits without using a ladder.
The book was: Grow a Little Fruit Tree by Ann Ralph

Me too!  It was not easy cutting the tree basically in half after getting a stick in the mail, but all of the trees survived and are doing well a good 5-6 years on. Many have started producing fruit, so I'd say, "Go for it!"