I went a little fruit tree crazy two years ago, planting two apples, a Santa Rosa plum, and two mandarin oranges. You probably know that you need two different apples for them to pollinate, mine are Pink Lady and Fuji, both do well here and are my favorites anyway, and I have a nice little crop of them this year. Had a single plum this year that I knocked off when lawn mowing, but tree looks great and I bet it'll be covered with them next year.
Three years later, trees are now 5 years planted, here's an update:
Santa Rosa plum: This is the first year I've gotten a crop from this tree. I guess it was stimulated by the big freeze. You know, the freeze that practicality completely shut down all of Texas's infrastructure. I had tons of germination, but 90% of the baby fruit were destroyed by worms (actually moth larva). I think the worm explosion also was a result of the freeze.
I'm left with a couple dozen fruit. They are small -- the one on the left is normal, the other is a bit stunted -- but delicious. Note the worm scars. I think that if the worm gets to the plum early, the tree drops it, but if the worm gets to the plum late, the tree keeps on making its seed.
The really cool thing about these plums is that they ripen so early. It's not even summer. The apples and pecans won't ripen until late fall.
One more thing I learned -- that grayish coating is called "bloom." It's waxy and protects many different fruits from drying out and insects.
Apples: This is also the first year that I'm getting an apple crop. Pretty much exact same story as the plum tree, except I'm only going to get about 10 apples, and only from one tree.
Here's the sad thing about the apple trees. My two cats loved using those little tree trunks as scratching posts. I guess they were the perfect texture and hardness. I never gave it a second thought. Then, last year, I finally noticed that their scratching had practically girdled both trees. This had been going on for 3 or 4 years, and I never snapped to it. No wonder those trees have been so feeble. Each is about 75% girdled, with just a little strip of bark feeding each tree. But, they really seem to have a strong will to live, and are doing their best to survive.
Mandarin oranges: Our nurseries sell cold-hardy mandarins, but 4 days where it never gets above freezing, with night-time lows of 18 degrees, is too much. I'm pretty sure that every mandarin in town died. Full grown, these were glorious trees, with hundreds and hundreds of fruit on them, maybe even thousands.
However... mine are small enough that I built scaffoldings around my two mandarins, wrapped the scaffolds with blankets, and ran a bare electric bulb under each scaffold as a heater. So, now they look just great. I've possibly got the only two mandarins in town.
I have yet to get a crop. Last year, each tree produced a single delicious fruit. This year, I don't have any.