One afternoon a few years ago, when our peach tree was heavy with fruit, my 16 year old daughter came through the back door and declared, “Wow mom!  The smell of those peaches reminds me of my childhood!  There is nothing else quite like that smell!”

My mother-heart melted right there!  I am doing something right, if my daughter gets all sentimental over the scent of ripe homegrown peaches!  All my hard work in keeping those trees alive in this desert heat is worth it.  All the hours of canning freezer jam together as a family have made their mark, and it’s a happy one!  But I know what she means, I love those peaches too.

There is something indescribably heavenly about walking outside into my backyard, picking a perfectly ripe piece of fruit off our tree and reveling in its juicy deliciousness dripping down my chin.  Just heaven, I tell you!

We left those giant fruit trees however, and moved to a new housing development several miles away.  Oh how I have missed my beautiful trees!!  As soon as we moved in, we planted new fruit trees in our barren backyard of nothing but dirt, and I have tended them carefully, pruned them religiously, and now almost four years later, we finally have enough fruit to be able to make freezer jam again.  Oh happy day!

Before we moved into the new house, I spent hours and hours online researching fruit tree varieties that would do well in our area.  Believe me, it is not an easy thing to find deciduous fruit trees that will thrive here in the desert southwest.  And it can be touch and go for the first couple hot summers until they get established enough and take off and grow.  But through lots of research, trial and error, we have had success.  Would you like to know what I have learned?

Here are some of the guiding principles for growing fruit trees in the desert…

Chill Hours

This is the single most important factor to consider when choosing fruit tree varieties.  We have to be very careful to choose the right varieties for our area because we don’t have many chill hours.  I looked for varieties that need 300-400 or less chill hours, most of the varieties I chose need around 200 hours.  The Dave Wilson Nursery website lists chill hour requirements for all the different varieties, so again, it is super helpful.

Don’t let any nursery salesman talk you into a different variety than you have previously researched unless you check the chill hours (hopefully 200ish, and no more than 400) and the ripening dates, and they will actually work for what you want.  I just had DaveWilson.com pulled up on my phone while I was at the nursery so I could look up any different varieties I found.

Ripening Times

Be careful that the varieties you choose don’t all ripen at the same time.  I cannot stress this enough!  Be well aware of when each variety will ripen, and if you plan it right, you will have different trees to harvest all throughout the season.  For citrus trees, Greenfield Citrus has a very useful chart that lists most of the citrus varieties and their ripening times.  Dave Wilson’s plant catalog will give you the ripening times of the different varieties of stone fruit.  They are in California, but their ripening times aren’t too far off from ours.

Cross Pollination

Varieties that are self-fruitful don’t usually need a pollinator, but they perform better with one.  For instance, we had a Santa Rosa plum which is supposed to be self-pollinating and it never produced plums for me.  This time I am planting two of each kind of fruit (different varieties, different ripening times) so that I will get the best fruit set.

Sun Exposure

With our crazy hot afternoon sun, south and east exposure are best.  The trees will not be happy if they have too much afternoon sun from the west, and the fruit will burn and split.  Having either the house or some taller shade trees on the west side of your fruit trees will really help.  The fruit trees will also shade each other if you put them close enough together.

The owner of a local citrus farm told me that the only fruit trees that can handle the hot western afternoon sun are pomegranates and figs because they actually love the heat and taste better from it.  So you can use them to shade the other trees too.

I have learned from experience that Desert Gold peach and Flordaprince peach can handle the west sun extremely well with only slight coaxing.  Also the Anna apple and Ein Shemmer apple tolerate the west heat as well (which makes sense because both of those apple varieties are from Israel.)  My Anna apple has actually really taken off and it has direct western sun all afternoon. 

Spacing

Even if you have full size or semi-dwarf trees, you can keep them to any height and width you want with winter AND summer pruning (as opposed to just winter pruning).  That means you can plant the trees 10-12 feet apart, no problem (we did 12 ft).  The BEST website I have found for info and videos on this is DaveWilson.com which is one of the most well-known bare root supplier for fruit trees.

One of the most common misconceptions about fruit trees is that they require a huge amount of space, but that’s just not true.  Because of what I learned on Dave Wilson’s website, I had the courage to fill our 90’x50’ backyard with 20 fruit trees!  It just takes consistent pruning each year to keep them to the 12 foot height and width.  Totally doable!

Watering

Fruit trees need to be watered deeply.  Make a well around the tree, about a foot out from the rootball, and move the well outward as the tree grows.  The well should be as wide as the dripline (imagine water dripping off the tree’s outer leaves).  Fill the wells every day right after planting, but then gradually ease off on the watering, till you are watering every couple days, then every week, once the tree is more established.  Let the tree tell youtime how long it takes to fill the well.  Keep an eye on the trees and water more if they look stressed.  Keep an eye on them.  When they are established, use your irrigation.  Is it once a week during summer?  That’s what they will need.

Varieties I Chose (listed alphabetically by fruit)

Apple

Anna – ripens Jun 30-Jul 25 – red blushed yellow/green

Ein Shemmer – ripens Jun 25-Jul 10 – yellow/green

There are not many varieties of low-chill apples, so these are the two varieties which are most reliable here.  You have to plant both for reliable pollination and production.  I also wanted to try Sundowner apples but couldn’t find anyone around here who had them.  Sundowner is supposed to have better flavor than Anna and Dorsett Golden and it ripens in the fall as opposed to the summer when everything else ripens.  I ended up choosing Ein Shemmer and I have been happy with the tree and the flavor of the fruit.  It has a good tang, with some sweetness and makes good applesauce.  We have found that if you pick the apples and let them sit on the counter for a few days, they get sweeter.

Apricot

Gold Kist – ripens May 26-Jun 5

One of the best performers for our area.  I had a Katy apricot in our last house and I got hardly any fruit from it, and the little bit of fruit I got wasn’t that great in flavor.  So far, Gold Kist is way better in flavor and amount of fruit on the tree.  It doesn’t hold on the tree well though, the fruit must be picked within a few days or it will all fall off.

Flavor Delight Aprium – ripens Jun 3-17 

It’s a blend between apricot and plum, but it looks and tastes like an apricot.  Flavor Delight needs another apricot to pollinate.  This is my new favorite tree, next to my Desert Gold peach!  The flavor is amazing and better than any apricot I have ever tasted.  Fruit lasts longer on the tree than the Gold Kist, though the harvest only lasts for about a week.  It is also a very vigorous growing tree, it is one of the biggest and prettiest in our yard so far.

Cherries

Minnie Royal

Royal Lee

both ripen May 10-29

Though I didn’t have much luck with them, these varieties really are a miracle because until they recently developed them, there was NO possibility of growing cherries with our low chill hours!  Take note that both varieties must be planted because they need to pollinate each other.  I had such high hopes for these trees, but I gave up on them after three years of being in the ground.  I am not going to spend money to water a tree that doesn’t grow well or produce.

They never had fruit (though I was told they may take up to 5 years to produce cherries), but the worst thing was that they were horribly stressed by the summer heat.  I even had them in the shade during part of the day.  My husband is an expert at diagnosing watering issues, so I know it wasn’t the lack of water, or even too much water.

They may have low chill hours, but they don’t deal well with our summer heat.  Super disappointing!  The last straw was when I visited my aunt in Utah and her giant cherry tree looked a little stressed (though nothing like the brown curled leaves of my stressed cherry trees at home).  I asked about the tree and she told me that the summer there had been hotter than normal and the tree was struggling a bit.  And her summer temperatures are 20 degrees cooler than ours!  That’s when I knew that I would probably never get my cherry tree to be happy in our heat.  But hey, maybe you will have better luck than I did!

Citrus:

(check Greenfield Citrus for lots of specific information about the varieties)

Oro Blanco Grapefruit – ripens Jan-May

A hybrid grapefruit with very sweet white flesh, which won’t need sugar at all 🙂  If you want a red grapefruit, Rio Red (a variant on Ruby Red) is the best variety and has awesome sweet/tart flavor.  That was the tree we had in our last house and Aaron and I loved it!  But it was too tart for the kids and they always wanted to put sugar on it.  So this time we are going to go with a sweeter variety.

Minneola Tangelo – ripens Jan-Apr- everyone raves about this variety, it’s a hybrid also and is sweet with a tang

Cara Cara Navel – ripens Dec-Feb- pink/red fleshed sweet navel orange with a slight hint of berry taste

Tango Mandarin – ripens Jan-Mar- a lot of people rave about this variety.

It is a heavy producer, seedless, and doesn’t tend to be alternate bearing, which is a problem with most mandarins/tangerines.  It will need some thinning because it tries to produce so much fruit, and the leaves were perpetually curled.  Flavor is good.

Eureka Lemon – ripens late winter to early sping

A better choice than Lisbon because it is mostly thornless and doesn’t have such a crazy growth habit.  Lisbon can get out of control fast and will need lots of pruning.  This is my favorite classic lemon, we have loved this tree!

Meiwa Kumquat – ripens year round- super sweet, kids favorite

Nagami Kumquat – ripens year round- sweet with a bit of tang, and my favorite flavor between the two

Fig

Black Mission – ripens Aug 10- Nov 5

This is the well know dark fig variety and one of the best for eating and storing.  This variety has a closed eye on the end of the fruit so that bugs don’t get in as easily, super important.  Other varieties have open eyes and are prone to bug infestation.

The other variety that is more of a fresh eating fig is Peter’s Honey and it seals it’s open eye with a drop of “honey” so it is also more resistant to bugs.  It’s a yellow/green fig which is a plus because the birds don’t find them as easily as the black ones.  I really really wanted to like this tree, because it is a vigorous grower and its leaves are huge and beautiful (a real rarity in the desert).

But I found out that I don’t like figs at all!!  When I cut into them, they look like they are made of worms.  And they had no flavor at all, so they were NOT worth the completely unappetizing appearance.  I am waiting to see if I can find recipes to use the figs in, hoping that I can justify watering this beautiful tree.  

Grapes

Thompson Seedless
Flame Seedless 

both ripen end of June-July

All I can say is WOW!!  I did not have grapes in our old house, and I was seriously missing out!  These grapes love the heat and have grown like weeds!  They almost completely covered my back wall, two years after they had been in the ground.  And the flavor is good, though the grapes are nowhere as big as the ones in the store.  Super happy with them!

Nectarines

Unfortunately these are pretty useless here in my experience.  I have never heard of any of my friends being successful with them.  A local nursery owner told me it was because our heat makes them VERY susceptible to thrips, which ruin the fruit and stunt the growth of the tree.  I decided not to bother with them.

Peach

Desert Gold – ripens May 24-Jun 5

Love this tree, it’s the most AWESOME peach!  This was our favorite tree in our old house because it is totally delicious and produced a TON of peaches every year even though there was not another peach tree to pollinate it.  One year we got 70 pints of jam off that young tree!  It’s the variety a local tree farm recommended and was the U-pick peaches variety he used.  If you only got one fruit tree this would be the one I would recommend!

Flordaprince – ripens May 25- June 9

I planted this variety in winter as bareroot.  It was highly recommended to me by one of my good friends.  She raved about the flavor, how much fruit the tree produces and that it does really well in the heat.  Dave Wilson’s website agreed and even said that the Flordaprince tolerates the desert heat better than the Desert Gold peach.  Impressive!  It has grown quickly and the few peaches we have had from it tasted delicious.  Too bad it ripens at the same time as Desert Gold, I wish I could spread out the harvest from these two trees. 

Red Baron– ripens Jul 18-Aug 1

I picked this variety for the sole reason that when I saw it at the nursery it was covered in the most beautiful hot pink blossoms I have ever seen on a fruit tree!  And even if I never got peaches off of it, it would be worth it!  I was looking for another peach tree that ripened at a different time than my Desert Gold and fell in love with this one!  It hardly has any peaches on it so far, and I am not super impressed with the flavor, so I am considering replacing it.  Until next spring comes around, because I’m sure I will change my mind once I see those beautiful blossoms again!

Pear

Pears are basically out in our area because of their high chill requirement, except for a few varieties.  I almost bought the Hood pear, because several gardeners loved the flavor.  I learned that in order to bring out their flavor, you have to harvest early then put them in paper bags in the fridge to finish ripening.  The tree-ripened flavor is terrible they say.  I decided not to mess with it for the time being.  Though I have extra wall space, so I may try it in espalier form in the future.  I would love to hear your thoughts if you have been successful with pears.

Plum

Santa Rosa- ripens Jun 25-Jul 5

This is supposed to be the best plum tree for our area.  Since my plum tree in the old house never produced any fruit for me, this time I am getting another variety to pollinate it.  We had a super cold winter last year and this tree was absolutely loaded with fruit, so I think having more chill hours is what it needs.

Beauty- ripens Jun 15-25

Also a popular choice around here, and a good pollinator for Santa Rosa, but I wasn’t super impressed with the tart flavor of the fruit.
I wanted a Burgundy plum because it is a heavy bearing variety with great flavor and it ripens really late in the season which is a plus because most of the other trees I have ripen early and mid season.  But none of the nurseries around here carried it, so maybe it doesn’t do well in our heat?

Pomegranate

Parfianka– ripens Sept- a huge taste test winner, with soft seeds and great flavor

Angel Red – ripens early Sept- new variety with very soft seeds and tons of juice, which resists splitting (one of the worst problems for pomegranates).

These trees like the heat and will taste differently depending on how much sun they get.  Put them in the hottest part of your yard with the most sun from the west and south.  Also don’t water them too much, they are used to dry climates.I could not get these to turn red inside, they were cream colored with an occasional slight blush.  The peels were dark red, but the arils inside were not.  I have talked to multiple people who have this same issue in our area, so it may be a soil thing.  More research is needed…

What are your favorite fruit trees for the desert? Do you have any tried and true tips?