I wanted to base it off of actual apple trees, which can start growing apples at a relatively small size. But also, the tree could appear bigger if you used a smaller person sprite
The scale sprite is the part worth keeping. Tree art usually gets posted floating on a blank canvas, and a buyer can't tell whether it fits their game until they drop it in next to a character.
Three different foliage methods in one image is also what makes these read as different species rather than recolours. Vertical drip strokes on the willow, discrete clumps on the fruit tree, individual petals on the blossom. The fruit tree has the clearest branch structure of the three.
Crops are probably less fun because a crop has to be four growth stages of the same plant that still read as one plant, which is bookkeeping. A tree is one silhouette and done.
