In my last column, I wrote about my burning desire to grow my own tree fruit and how it led me to clear a piece of land and plan an orchard.

Once I had the space ready and the deer fencing in place, the time came to tackle the task of choosing the perfect trees to plant. In this column I’ll share with you what choices I made and why.

It all began with a Bartlett pear my employer had that needed a home. I was more than willing to adopt it because, as you well know, offering a good deal on a plant to a gardener is like offering a 5-year old a puppy. Who can say no?

I don’t have a lot of space and this semi-dwarf Bartlett should only reach 14 -18 feet in height and a little less in spread. Bear in mind this isn’t that much shorter than a standard Bartlett, which can reach 20 feet.  In the end, all the trees I planted are semi-dwarf varieties and should run the gamut from an estimated 12 feet at the shortest to 18 feet at the tallest.

It’s important to keep in mind that choosing dwarf or semi-dwarf plants doesn’t mean you’re going to get a bonsai. It’s all relative to the size of a standard variety of tree or shrub.

A dwarf barberry is small in comparison to a full-sized barberry, but a dwarf fruit tree may still need a ladder to prune.

With one pear in the ground, I knew I needed another pear as a pollination partner. Remember, pears aren’t self-fertile and require a pear of a different variety for cross pollination. So the second pear I planted was an Anjou.

Look for bare root trees when the nurseries acquire them in late winter. This is because they’re a good value, you can see exactly what shape the roots are in and those roots are spread out and not growing in a spiral of doom from being forced to live in a too small pot.

Next came a frost peach. I chose it because it’s reputed to do well in our climate, is disease resistant and is a heavy bearer. Peaches are self-fertile, so I didn’t need to plant another variety of peach to ensure fruit development.

Finally, I included a rainbow assortment of some of the sweetest and juiciest plums on the market. Shiro is a yellow Japanese plum that is semi-self fertile, so to make sure it produced fruit I paired it with a red Japanese plum,  Methley, which needs a pollination partner.  I added a European Green Gage plum, which doesn’t require another European plum for fertilization, and a purple plum of mysterious origins that was gifted to me.

That’s it so far — seven trees — with room for a few more. There are so many varieties of apples out there I haven’t decided yet which two will earn a spot on my team. And as for cherries, do I want to spend my time battling with the birds? Maybe I’ll just erect an enormous arbor and raise delicious kiwi fruit instead.

Stay tuned as my adventures as an orchardist continue.