Adding a fruit tree to your garden can improve the aesthetics of your property and provide you with home-grown crops. While the process of growing a fruit tree might be time-consuming, it can bring you plenty of satisfaction. However, to increase your chances of getting healthy crops, you must select fruit trees that will thrive in your hardiness zone. Indeed, attempting to plant a fruit tree that won’t grow well in your area can be discouraging. And no one likes that. Show Luckily, there are plenty of zone 7b fruit trees you can choose to grow in your garden. Don’t forget that regardless of the tree you choose, you most likely have to ensure you can provide it with rich and well-draining soil. Also, you may have to keep an eye out for pests and diseases which might ruin your crops. In this essential guide, we put together our favorite options. If you need some inspiration, here, you’ll find all you need to know about growing zone 7b fruit trees. Apple Tree
Having an apple tree can improve the looks of your landscape. After all, there must be reasons why this crop is such a popular option for many homeowners. You can choose from many varieties of apple trees, most of them suitable for growing in zone 7b. However, before planting one, you must consider the available space you have at your disposal: you may have to add more than one tree to ensure pollination. Also, you’ll need to provide your trees with full sun. We are talking about six hours of direct sunlight per day here. If you can’t provide them with that, consider another species for your garden. Also, apple trees are heavy drinkers. You will have to water it frequently. However, if your soil is fertile, you won’t have to give them any fertilizer. Add some mulch around your tree’s base to improve water retention and increase the nutrient content in the soil. Finally, don’t forget to prune your tree annually to remove dead branches and improve airflow (which will minimize attacks from pests and diseases). ApricotApricot trees need full sun and plenty of space to thrive. Apricot trees will give you delicious fruits and embellish your garden with stunning blooms during the spring. However, if you have pets, you may have to choose another fruit tree for your garden: apricot’s leaves, seeds, and stems are toxic to most animals, including humans. The good news is that, like with apples, apricots don’t need fertilizer. During dry months, you may have to water your tree more frequently. The Sungold and Chinese varieties are the best suited for zone 7b, but you can also try planting Goldrich or Harflow for late blooms. Cherry
Cherry thrive in zone 7b, which is good news if you like these delicious fruits. However, cherries are relatively challenging to grow and require some attention to thrive. Sweet cherries do not self-pollinate, so you will have to add more than one three to ensure fruit production. Plus, these trees need full sun and adequate airflow: avoid planting them too close to each other or a wall. Instead, you’ll only need one tart cherry tree to get rich crops. Plus, this variety is less sensitive to heavy soils, making them the ideal option for clay grounds. Before planting cherry trees in your garden, you have to do some research about chill hours. With short winters, you’ll have to look for low-chill cultivars. For 7b hardiness zones, Sweetheart and Tieton are the best options. Peach
Peach is one of the most versatile trees you can add to your garden. For starters, they are self-pollinating, meaning you only need one tree to gather plenty of fruits. While most varieties require full sun, you can also find species that thrive in partial shade. Provided that you give your trees fertile soils and plenty of water, they will do fine in most conditions. In zone 7b, consider planting Goldprince and Topaz for the best results. QuinceIf you would like to grow something less traditional, we recommend you think about planting a quince tree in your garden. The fruit tastes something like apples and pears, and it is delicious in jams and jellies. If you don’t have much space in your garden, this tree is an ideal option: they usually don’t grow more than 20 feet high. Unlike most trees we presented in this guide, quince will do well in heavy soils. However, you’ll need to protect them from wind, as they can be susceptible to wind damage. Zone 7b Fruit Trees: The Bottom LineWhen deciding to grow a tree in your garden, you must know which species will grow well in your hardiness zone. Don’t forget that you’ll still have to take soil quality, wind, and rainfall into account before planting one tree. Related Article: Trees That Start with B: Trees From Around the World
It’s an exciting time for Emma and me: Spring is approaching in North Carolina, and this year will mark the beginning of the food forest at our homestead. Despite being incredibly busy building our cabin, we are wanting to get some productive trees in the ground so that we might see the benefits sooner rather than later. We are working under the maxim of the best time to plant a fruit tree was ten years ago, so a little diversion from building might be in order. Our property is just at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where Appalachian Highlands change to Piedmont. This puts us in USDA Zone 7, in a region well-known for its steady rainfall (getting steadier, they say) that averages 47 inches (1200 mm) a year. We also get 200-plus days of sunshine, and in the winter, we get a little snow (6 inches/150 mm), with the coldest night temperatures rarely dropping below 20F (-7C) and only a few chilly winter days that stay below freezing. We bought a 4.67-acre (2 hectare) property, which is mostly forested but has about an acre (4000 square meters) cleared. Roughly a third of this space is being dedicated to a forest garden, which is to be located just downslope of our dam (to the west), a staple garden surrounded by berry hedges (to the north), and a privacy fedge (to the east). We plan to use semi-dwarf fruit and small nut trees as our central productive species, and of course, we want to layer the forest with support species. This is what we are thinking: Nitrogen-FixersThe way we learned it, at the beginning of a food forest, nitrogen-fixers need to far outnumber the productive trees. In that vein, we are going to turn to a groundcover that we’ve been using over much of the open property, as well as a food-producing, chop-and-drop shrub and local erosion-control “weed”.
Pest Repellent/Beneficial AttractantPlants that repel pests and attract beneficial insects, the predators and pollinators, are also in the forest garden mix. We’ve got some particular issues we are worried about, i.e. burrowers and deer. While we’ll be protecting the garden with fences and hedges, we also plan on including plants helpful in battling these issues, while also attracting bees and butterflies.
Small Fruit & Nut TreesWhile we have grander aspirations of including over a dozen types of fruit and nut trees in our mix, we are planning to start with pairings of six different choices that are proven to work here and are more familiar, i.e. easy to access. Due to space restraints and easier harvesting, we plan to stick to semi-dwarf and/or naturally small trees, and we are going to start by planting them in clumps of three to five trees, sharing the plants from the aforementioned guild.
Other Varieties Coming SoonEssentially, we are trying to limit ourselves a little here at the start so as not to become overwhelmed with understanding and nurturing everything into production. That, and we are still trying to build a home. We do, however, have a list of other, sometimes more experimental additions we hope to add in the future.
What we’re hoping to do is successfully establish a good ground guild for getting things going: A groundcover (clover), vine (vetch), and shrubs (goumi) are fixing nitrogen, while “roots” (horseradish) and bulbs (daffodils, garlic) are repelling pests and herbaceous (dill, bee balm, comfrey) plants are attracting pollinators. All the while a dozen productive trees are being put into play. We have left plenty of room to adjust/expand, and should our first run prove viable, we’ll be harvesting a diverse, perennial bounty in the next few years. |