Question: How large should my peach tree be when I plant it?

Answer: Not very. Tall trees don’t bear any sooner, in fact, they can actually die from the shock of being transplanted at such a mature size. Usually a 4- or 5-foot tree will be perfect, especially since you’ll have to cut it back by 50 percent after you plant it. While that’s a guideline left over from the day when all fruit trees were sold bare-rooted, you still need to cut a container-grown tree back by half, just to get it to establish its main scaffold branches 24 to 28 inches from the ground.