self pollinating question

Hi, i'm considering buying a few trees - plum, cherry and apple. a label on the cherry tree tells me it is self pollinating but labels on the other 2 trees inform me of other types of plum/apple trees which might be suitable for pollinating with them. what does this mean? will all of these trees bear fruit or will i have to do tricky cross-pollination things to achieve this? forgive the simple question but i am a bit of a low-maintenance gardener!!

 

i think fruit trees can only cross pollinate, as thats why the graft new fruit tree's on to host trees. so i would presume that you wouldn't need to worry.
but could be wrong.

 

Some fruit trees are referred to as self fertile, that means that the pollen produced by that plant is capable of fertilizing its own flowers.

Some, and probably the majority are not self fertile, and another unrelated tree of the same species is require to pollinate it.

So say an apple would need another apple tree of a different variety to pollinate.
You cant use the same variety as that is actually the same tree grafted onto another root.
A single variety is actually the same plant.

Difficult to explain, but I hope it makes sense

You dont have to do the pollinating the insects will do that for you.
The chances are that a neighbour in your locality will probably be growing some thing similar and pollination usually takes place naturally .