Top 7 Fruit Trees you can grow in Pots in Australia (Small Spaces Guide)

Can you grow fruit trees in pots?

Despite what many people think, growing fruit trees in pots is definitely achievable, yielding good crops of your favourite fruits while keeping them smaller, making them perfect for a gardener with limited space.

Not sure how much space you’ll need to grow each fruit tree? Check out this guid here to find out what size pot each fruit tree needs.

Which fruit trees can you grow in pots?

Here are the best recommendations for you to grow fruit trees in pots for Australian gardens.

1) Citrus

Nothing beats going out into the garden and picking some fresh lemons to add to your favourite dishes or drinks. Luckily, citrus is the perfect tree for a smaller container garden or balcony plant.

Lemons, limes, cumquats, and grapefruits all thrive in pots. Choose a dwarf variety or a plant labelled as a dwarf plant, as this type will naturally grow smaller. However, a standard-sized citrus will remain smaller when grown in a pot than when planted in the ground.

Some popular varieties include:

• Lemon Lots Of Lemons
• Lime Sublime
• Cumquat Nagami
• Cumquat Meiwa
• Grapefruit Dwarf Rio Red

2) Apples

Dwarf varieties of apples can thrive in pots. The most important detail when picking an apple to grow in Australia, especially in the states and regions with milder winters, is picking varieties with a ‘low chill’.

This means the hours of cold required to produce fruit in the next season; low chill indicates a need for fewer hours. So, as well as making sure the tree is dwarf, also make sure the variety is suitable for the number of hours of cold you get in your area.

Dwarf, low-chill varieties:

• Dwarf Tropic Sweet
• Dwarf Dorsett Golden
• Dwarf Tropical Anne

Dwarf, high-chill varieties:

• Leprechaun (Dwarf Granny Smith)
• Super Dwarf Red Delicious
• Pinkabelle

Apple trees can also be semi self-fertile (produce some fruit without cross-pollination), but they will still produce better yields if paired with a suitable variety to cross-pollinate with.

Worried you won’t have enough space for two dwarf apple trees? No worries! There are apple trees that have two varieties grafted to one plant. This means you’ll get two varieties of apples and all the benefits of cross-pollination for yields while only needing one pot!

3) Avocado

If you think of avocados, you usually think of huge trees, taking up space that is almost the size of a small garden on its own! But do not fear, Wurtz is here!

Wurtz is a smaller growing avocado tree, growing to only 2.5m when kept in a pot, giving you a compact plant with beautiful, creamy, medium-sized fruits. Although this may be too big for someone limited to a balcony or a very small area, if you love avocados and have got the space for a compact tree, this could be the pick for you.

Avocados do produce more fruit when a Type A and a Type B are grown together, but Wurtz is still a self-fertile variety that will give you plenty of fruit without a companion.

4) Blueberries

One of the great joys in life is going out to the garden and eating fresh berries straight from the plant, and blueberries deliver!

Blueberries are not trees, but rather bushes (and growing great in pots!). Variety depending blueberry plants can grow up to 1.5m in pots. Blueberry season changes by state. In Australia, you can find blueberries in season nearly all year because of the different climates.

Most blueberries can self-pollinate, but cross-pollinating with different varieties helps boost yields. So, it’s best to have a group of blueberry pots that flower together.

Like apples, different areas will have different chill requirements to get fruit on your blueberry plants. So, make sure you pick varieties that will produce in the area you are in!

Low chill varieties to plant together:

• Biloxi
• Misty

High Chill Varieties to plant together:

• Bluecrop
• Jersey

Looking at what is available locally and checking the labels for growth heights will give you the best idea of which varieties will be best for you if you aren’t too sure. A reputable nursery shouldn’t be selling a variety not suitable for the area.

5) Figs

Fig trees are a delicious fruit to grow, not to mention that buying the fruit from a supermarket is very expensive, so if you’re a lover of fresh figs who wants more money to spend on the garden, it’s time to get a fig in your garden.

Figs, when grown in the ground, like many other plants in the Ficus family, have very invasive roots, but also like many others in the Ficus family, they happily grow in a pot and stay smaller while producing great yields.

There is a dwarf fig variety called ‘Little Miss Figgy’ if you’re chasing a very small growing variety, or are limited on the size of the pot you can get. If you are less restricted on pot size, ‘Brown Turkey’, ‘Celeste’, and ‘Black Genoa’ are easier to find and will still be great pot-grown plants.

6) Mulberry

Dwarf Mulberry trees are a great addition to a container garden, giving fruit from late spring to early summer. Unlike some fruit trees, you will get great yields within a couple of years of planting. Make sure to prune each year heavily in winter if you want to keep the tree smaller and bushier.

Dwarf varieties great for containers include:

• Dwarf Black Mulberry (Morus nigra)
• Mulberry Majestic (Dwarf black variety)
• Dwarf Red Shahtoot (Morus macroura)

It’s worth being aware that you can’t pick the fruit off the plant until it is completely ripe, as once picked, it won’t continue to ripen. This means covering plants with a net during fruiting season is a must; it will be a race against the birds to see who can eat the fruit first once ripe (spoiler: it’s usually the birds).

7) Bananas

Last but not least, the mighty banana. This again is one that people are surprised to hear me say. When you see bananas in gardens, they are usually taller than you can reach and wider than a lot of small gardens and balconies alone.

Well, you’re in luck, as there are now dwarf varieties (and even super dwarf varieties!) that make container growing of bananas possible to add a bit of tropical foliage to your balcony or garden space in containers.

Don’t be fooled by the appearance of the small plant; the bunches of bananas it produces will still be full size and the fruits as big, but taste even better than anything you’ve picked off a supermarket shelf.

It is important to keep bananas in pots well-watered, well-fed, and to make sure to remove any ‘suckers’ that grow alongside the main plant, to make sure they don’t get out of control and to maximise the nutrients being put into the main stem.

Varieties of bananas great for pots include:

• Dwarf cavendish
• Super Dwarf Cavendish
• Dwarf Red Dacca
• Dwarf Lady Finger

Now you know which fruit trees you can grow in pots, why not check out my all inclusive guide on how to grow fruit trees in pots to get the most from your smaller spaces.