Fruit tree for screening

[Littletreefrog]

What type of fruit tree could we grow next to this fence to increase the height and offer a little bit of privacy from the house over the road?

Also needs to be beginner friendly as we have never had a garden before and preferably not an apple tree as we already have one of those.

I dont want it to grow too tall maybe 2 to 3 metres. The garden faces South jaybe very slightly South East if that makes a difference.

Thank you.

Cherry? Even an ornamental one, the blossom is lovely and we have one that has red leaves so provides some colour, a prunus cerasifera cherry plum, the fruit is edible but sour , not that we get any, the seagulls see to that

They look like this

I was going to suggest cherry as well- as you can see they're nice dense trees, more so than an apple or a pear which is often taller and thinner than apple.

The key for getting the final height you want is choosing the right rootstock- I'd buy from a local nursery and talk to them.

Are you wanting a fruit tree because you want the fruit? Cherries are one of those things where - just as you are thinking "they are almost ripe, almost ready for picking" - wildlife tends to get in there first and gobble the lot.
Apparently they don't do it with morello cherries.

We have a cherry (Stella) & it's a lovely tree. White blossom in spring & lots of leaf cover in summer, turning red gold in autumn.
We planted it 9 years ago, it was about a 1ft high twiggy sapling then - now it's a good 8-7ft, decent trunk (kids can climbing it) & when in full leaf much higher. DH prunes it every year to stop it getting much bigger & stop it encroaching on the neighbours etc.
But we've never had a cherry! As others say, the birds ALWAYS eat them before they're ripe!! Beautiful tree though.

Are you getting apples on your tree? Most of them require a different variety of apple, that flowers at the same time, somewhere nearby to act as a pollinator.

That is a nice tree, Squirrel. Your DH has pruned it to a good shape!

Thank you @senua ! I always think he's over pruned it when it's done, it looks so severe, bare & forlorn but it bursts back into life every spring.
This year was the first year it wasn't attacked by aphids - not sure if it was me planting garlic chives round its base (aphids don't like them apparently) or the fact we had two new prunus saplings available (apricot & plum) which they all made a beeline for; but the cherry has looked lovely this year. No cherries for us again though - birds!

I wouldn't go for a fruit tree, as you will still be overlooked when the leaves drop off. I'd go for planting 6ft beech hedges, which will grow higher if you want - we have them all around our property and they're about 12ft high now. Non invasive to the neighbours and easy to maintain.

That's because morello cherries are really bitter!
If you want to eat fruit; apple, pear or Victoria plum are all quite easy, and will take heavy pruning. You can get self fertile ones, but I still hand pollinate, to maximise my crop.
Figs are lovely, but require a bit more patience, they take a while to get going and fruit, but once they start romping away they need quite a bit of pruning or they grown massive. Pruning is a bit more challenging as they produce fruit which then ripen the following year.
Avoid nectarines, peach and apricot as, unless you live somewhere which seldom get frosts, they don't tend to thrive in our climate.
If you put a trellis up you could grow grapes easily enough...and make your own wine.

Thank you all. We thought fruit tree because DH has gone all Its a Good Life. Not overly bothered about completely screening the area so the leaves dropping is not a huge issue. Just to break up the view of the house more than being bothered about over the road being able to look into the garden.

We haven't moved in yet just trying to come up with a plan for when we do. We have an olive tree and a date palm which we need to plant next to the fence as well. Currently growing in pots in our yarden so hopefully when they get let loose in the ground will grow a bit taller

Plum will give you more chance of fruit. Or a pear on dwarfing rootstock. Or a Brownlees Russet apple with pink flowers (which will not taste like your other apple)

Just a heads up to check how free draining the soil is before planting the olive out. My colleague killed a £300 one by planting it out in an area that was soggy over winter.

The little fuckers stripped my morello this year. They left it alone last year and just ate my sweet cherry but this year they did both. It's possible I left the morellos on too long (they get sweeter if you leave them).

I was going to say jubilee plum. It's very disease resistant and beginner friendly and it crips like Billy ho.

I'd do pleach pear trees so they dont take up too much room, you get fruit and some privacy

I have conference pear, apple and cherry. I get to eat the apples. The cherry is stripped unless you net it. Pear gets attacked by wasps.

I think you will annoy your neighbour with a fruit tree as it will drop into their garden. They just aren’t great backed up to a fence, your neighbour will cut it back and it will be lopsided.

There isn't another garden the other side of the fence it is a road and then the neighbours front garden so I think we will be ok on that front.

Ah will do thank you. I'm very attached to my olive tree as it survived being nibbled down to an1 inch stump by one of my foster rabbits and is now about 4ft tall.