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I cut down 25 shade trees in my front yard. I want to replace them with fruit trees. I have the largest pile of fire wood you ever saw.

I want to plant 2 plum trees, 2 cherry trees, 2 pear trees, 2 apple trees, maybe more. Maybe some grape and raspberries too. I know there are different kinds of trees which ones are best to grow. I am looking for good flavor. Most of the fruit will be turned to juice then canned in mason jars for the winter. Apples and cherries will be canned as pie filling too.

Which ones get the tallest? I want to plant the tallest trees on the north side so they do not shade the shorter trees.

It sounds to me like you need a good local nursery that knows a lot about fruit trees, there's no real hard and fast rule for which fruits will grow taller except that apples are the easiest to get in standard form (not dwarfed) and a standard will be taller but will fruit later than a dwarfed tree. European Pears tend to be very upright in their growth habit, so they can get tall.

When choosing your trees think about more than just flavor, try to space out your ripening times to maximize your fruiting season, and also look for disease resistance and and proven producers in your climate.

I can tell you which fruit trees I've chosen to plant, but I'm not sure how well they will do for you in your climate.

Plums: Santa Rosa, Elephant Heart, Green Gage
Peaches: Babcock, Rio Oso Gem, Indian Free
Apples: Gravenstein, Thornberry, Rubaiyat, Grenadine
Apricots: Tomcot, Robada
Pear: D'Anjou Red (I have a neighbor with many pear trees that act as pollinators for mine, if you don't you will need two trees.)
Other: Hachiya Persimmon, Mango Pawpaw, Taytwo Pawpaw, Che, Shipova.

My favorite local nursery has a pdf catalog of their bare-foot fruit trees that tells you the flavor, size, bloom and ripening times, and has notations for varieties that have preformed well in our climate, or those that are being features by a local heritage group trying to preserve heirloom cultivars, etc. If you can find a resource like that it would tell you everything you need to know.

Good luck, and enjoy your fruits!

Gary,

I talked with Katy at Raintree Nursery and she was able to recommend apple, peach and cherry trees that should grow good in my climate. They are not the cheapest nursery but I would just as soon have great plants that are disease resistant and suited for my area.

Mike