Off-season a fantasy in Far North

We have room for perhaps three more trees, so there's a bit of a contest going on. Mud, mess, impulse buys and grand schemes for a South Island-style orchard make winter the busiest time of year.
I'm beginning to think winter is the busiest time of year in the garden.
It's when tropical downpours alert me to the fact we desperately need a covered space outside our main door, where workboots, jackets, umbrellas, impulsive nursery purchases and the electric drill can be left with impunity, and the cats and dog can be fed without their biscuits swelling to the size of the Hindenburg and blocking the drain.
We also need new lime chip on all the paths to prevent mud from rising to the surface and migrating into the house, gutter guards to stop the spouting overflowing and sending rivers of water through the shower window, pavers from the house to the vegetable garden so it is possible to fetch dill and other incredibly important flavours without one's shoes being sucked into knee-deep mud, and garden lighting to take us even further afield to find the patch of parsley growing wild on the riverbank.
And then there's the planting. Our courtyard is full of things that simply had to be bought and planted before the onset of winter, without which we would starve or drown.
Fruit trees, shelter trees, plants to counter erosion on the stream banks before the next flood, herbs, punnets of both plain and trendy veges, and flowering shrubs to uplift us when the fog comes down and the drizzle sets in.
And, of course, the time we have available to plant all this stuff is dictated by the weather, our actual paid work and the amount of energy we have left over after putting together the kitset garden shed, which we thought would save our sanity but which has, in fact, brought us to the brink of divorce.
"You have measured this wrong. Don't you know the difference between 4100 and 4010?"
"This iron is upside down. What's wrong with you that you can't flip a length of corrugated iron end-to-end when it's already on top of the shed?"
"Where are the instructions? Don't tell me you've thrown away Page 4 when we haven't even got the roof on yet!"
We did, in fact, get the roof on, made up and had a small, private roof shout and, over our champagne, settled down to talk trees.
We started our orchard only a couple of years ago and there are gaps, both visually and in terms of taste. The granny smith we chose proved a bit of a failure, so while we're figuring out what's wrong with it (or us), we're going to plant a heritage apple in the hope of capturing the taste of our childhood.
Apples are no longer just apples - they're described in the same language as wine these days, so you can choose your flavours, and if you're a fan of organics you can choose types which are naturally disease-resistant and will more easily fend off the usual black spot and powdery mildew problems.
We have room for perhaps three more trees, so there's a bit of a contest going on. The Partner, who, strangely, loves the cold, wants some South Island fruit. He's singularly unimpressed by figs, guava and the endless avenues of citrus that abound in the Far North, and yearns for cherries and apricots. He knows apricots are a long shot in a frost-free climate likes ours, but nurtures the hope that praying for a cold winter may do the trick. Peaches are a possibility and our neighbours have grown them successfully, so that's on the list, and possibly a quince, just to be terribly trendy.
In terms of visual impact, I'd like a crab apple, but I'd have to promise to make jellies and jams from the fruit. I'd like to, no question, but only if we've finished the shed, fixed the spouting, paved a few pathways and lit up the garden like a Christmas tree. I wish!