Top 9 Best Fruit Trees for Zone 4 Gardens

Hey there, zone 4 warriors! You didn’t pick the easiest climate for a fruit tree garden but don’t despare – I have 9 of the best zone 4 fruit trees for you. Not only are they extremely cold-hardy, but they’re also delicious and produce a bumper crop!

Just because it gets (freezing) cold doesn’t mean you can’t grow beautiful fruit in your orchard. Check out these gorgeous fruit trees below!

1. Kiwi Magic™ Hardy Kiwi Combination Tree

The Hardy Kiwi, or Kiwiberry, is an incredibly productive fruit tree. It’s perfect for covering fences, pergolas, or growing on a trellis.

The fruits are amazing – like mini kiwifruit! As you can see in the image, they are exactly like a kiwifruit on the inside, but they have smooth grape-like skin on the outside.

This makes them the perfect fruit for kids’ lunchboxes and as a snack. You can pop them straight into your mouth without the fuzzy skin of a regular kiwi fruit!

These fruit trees usually require a male and female for pollination, but the Kiwi Magic™ Combination Tree includes both, grown together. Complete, hassle-free pollination!

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 4-8
• Full sun to part shade (min. 4 hours of sun a day).
• Height: 20 – 25 feet.
• Width: 12 – 20 feet.
• Needs support. Train them into a T-shape on wires (similar to grapes) or provide a trellis or other support for them to grow up.
• Pick just before they’re fully ripe and store in the fridge once fully ripe.
• Mulch deeply.
• Water regularly, particularly while it’s fruiting.
• Prune to shape and remove woody canes in late winter and prune to open the canopy in June.

2. Toka Plum Tree

The Toka Plum has been around since 1911 and it’s no wonder why. If you’re going to grow only one fruit tree in your yard – this plum has to be a contender for the top pick!

This plum has been nicknamed “Bubblegum Plum” because of the incredibly sweet fruit it produces.

Not only does it produce beautiful fruit, but it is also quite possibly the best plum pollinator out there. If you grow other plum trees, the Toka Plum will greatly enhance the harvest from your other trees, too.

It’s also self-fertile so you don’t even need another plum tree if you don’t have the space!

Now, zone 4 is far from tropical so I just wanted to mention what Nature Hills used in their description:

It will grow just about anywhere, in full sun to part shade, and laughs at cold winters.

Winter is coming, my friends, so you may as well have a fruit tree that laughs at it. Even if you don’t.

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 3-8.
• Height: 15 – 20 feet.
• Spread: 12 – 18 feet.
• Full sun.
• Well draining soil.
• Fertilize regularly and mulch deeply.
• Fruits in summer.
• Self-fertile and great plum-pollinator.

3. Montmorency Cherry Tree

Who doesn’t love a good cherry pie!

Well, we do, and the Montmorency Cherry is your pick of the bunch for cherry pies. If, for some reason we may never fully understand, you don’t like cherry pie, these cherries are also yummy as a juice, preserve, or in other baked goodies.

It’s incredibly heavy bearing and self-pollinating – you only need one tree for a bumper crop. And, if you are blessed with a huge crop of cherries, they freeze and dry well so nothing goes to waste. Dried cherries make a great snack for kids!

This tree’s cherries are big and bright red. They’re tart and slightly sour which is exactly why they’re so great for cherry pie.

The Montmorency Cherry flowers in spring and its flowers will delight you. They’re bright white, wonderfully fragrant, and covered in bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

These qualities make it not only great at pollinating itself but the rest of your garden too!

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 4-9.
• Height: 12 – 18 feet.
• Spread: 10 – 12 feet.
• Full sun, well-drained soil.
• Self-pollinating and produces boatloads of fruits.
• Fruits in 3-5 years.
• Prune after flowering.
• Fertilize regularly and mulch deeply.
• Late season variety, 700 chill hours.
• Disease resistant.
• Great shade tree.

4. Honeycrisp Apple Tree

Welcome to the state fruit of Minnesota!

Bred by the University of Minnesota, the Honeycrisp apple tree was not only grown for its taste, which rivals the popular Fuji apple, but it was also bred specifically to be extremely cold hardy – perfect for orchards in zone 4!

It’s a high-chill variety (700-1000 hours) that tastes incredible (sweet, but not too sweet) with its thin skin and juicy, crisp flesh. It’s a delight to bite into.

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 3-8.
• Can be pruned to size.
• Full sun in well-draining soil.
• Plant another variety nearby for the best harvest. (Good friends include an early Gala (zone 4-10), a mid-season McIntosh (zone 4-11), and a late Red Delicious (zone 4-7) or Granny Smith (zone 6-9)).
• Ripens in September.
• Hangs on the tree for a long time, which prolongs harvest time.
• Stores well in a cool, dark place for 3 months and in the fridge for up to 6 months.
• High chill variety (700-1000 hours) and copes with high humidity.

5. Bartlett Pear Tree

The Bartlett Pear is perfect for snacking, cooking, and baking thanks to its beautifully crisp, white flesh.

It looks amazing year-round with its lovely foliage, vigorous growth habit, and gorgeous white flowers that attract bees, butterflies, and birds. Come fruiting time, you can expect green fruits that ripen to a golden yellow. Its taste is unmatched – juicy and super sweet.

The Bartlett Pear sets fruit well all by itself, but you can add other varieties to increase your harvest. This is an heirloom variety (going back to the late 1400s!) that is long-lived and required 800 chill hours.

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 4-9.
• Height: 12 – 18 feet
• Full sun.
• Highly adaptable to various types of soil.
• Fruits in 3-5 years.
• Sets fruit by itself but you can increase your harvest by planting Bosc (zone 4-9), D’Anjou (zone 4-9) or Comice (zone 4-9) nearby.
• Vigorous growth habit and long-lived.

6. Hackberry Tree

The Hackberry is highly adaptable to many types of soil. It’ll grow in clay and sand, and poor soils in general. It is tough, easy, and fast-growing – the perfect tree for urban backyards!

The Hackberry is highly valuable for wildlife and a wonderful tree for attracting pollinators. Birds love this tree, and it’s a particular favorite of the Cedar Waxwing.

It produces small flowers in the spring which are followed by small, dark purple, edible berries that taste a bit like dates. Hackberries were traditionally used by Native Americans as a source of food.

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 3-9.
• Height: 50 – 75 feet.
• Spread: 25 – 40 feet.
• Full sun to part shade.
• Excellent native bird tree for a source of feed and shelter.
• Fast-growing – fantastic shade tree.
• Drought, salt, and wind tolerant
• Adapts to most soil types.

7. Wild Strawberry

This may well be the most versatile fruiting plant you’ll grow in your garden this year. You can fit them anywhere!

They’re a long-growing perennial plant that can be grown in full sun to part shade, making it the perfect groundcover for any spot left unused. Grow them around your plums and apple tree, amongst your herbs, and in pots along paths. Grow them everywhere!

The Wild Strawberry is lovely and sweet. Berries form early in the season and they ripen quickly.

It happily grows in full sun and part shade and isn’t too fussed about the type of soil but prefers a well-drained position. It definitely prefers regular watering, particularly when it’s fruiting.

Pollinators love the Wild Strawberry‘s flowers – almost as much as you will love the fruits!

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 4-9.
• Height: 4-8″.
• Spread: 12-24″.
• Full sun to part shade.
• Well-drained soil, water regularly.
• Fruits in late spring.

8. Gala Apple Tree

Here’s the perfect early season apple!

Delicious, firm, juicy, and sweet fruits which can be stored for up to 6 months make this the perfect fruit tree addition for your zone 4 orchards. You may have tasted Gala apples in the store? Homegrown Galas blow them out of the water!

The Gala apple is easy to look after and doesn’t need a lot of TLC. It starts fruiting from an early age – no need to wait years and years for your first crop. It fruits well by itself, but benefits from a pollination friend (outlined below).

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 4-10.
• Full sun.
• Adaptable to many soil types, including clay. Best in slightly acidic, well-draining soil.
• Fruits well by itself but add another variety for a bigger harvest. Pairs well with Fuji (zone 6-9 only), a mid-season Honeycrisp, a late mid-season Red Delicious, or a late-season Granny Smith (zone 6-9 only).
• Great fresh, in salads, for homemade applesauce, baking, and juicing.
• Store as long as 6 months!

9. Regent Saskatoon Serviceberry

Clusters of lovely, fragrant flowers in the Spring, followed by small green berries that ripen in June. They look similar to blueberries and taste quite like them, too!

The Regent Saskatoon Serviceberry isn’t just delicious. It’s beautiful, easy to grow, and a favorite amongst pollinators as well.

Unlike most of our other fruit trees for zone 4, this one is a shrub, growing to around 6 ft tall. It makes a great edible hedge or border, and if you don’t eat the berries – the birds surely will!

Fruit Tree Specs

• Zone 2-7.
• Height: 4-6 ft.
• Width: 4-8 ft.
• Attracts pollinators.
• Beautiful and edible.
• Full sun, well-draining soil.
• Prune after flowering.

What’s Your Favorite Zone 4 Fruit Tree?

Don’t leave us hanging – what do you grow as your zone 4 fruit tree? Which fruit tree grows well, which one doesn’t?

We want to hear your stories, your triumphs, your disappointments!

Leave them in the comments below!