Grow Your Own Apples Garden Talk with Janine Winlaw | Instagram @janinewinlaw
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here’s nothing more satisfying, tasty and healthy than picking your own home grown apples. And with pretty pink tinged blossom in spring and autumn fruit, an apple tree adds an attractive and romantic feel to a garden. Here’s what you need to know. Apple trees can act as a focal point in a lawn or can provide structure in borders. Apples are grafted onto rootstocks producing different sized trees so there’s an apple tree to fit every size of garden. The most vigorous rootstocks, M111 and M106, make large standard or semi standard trees to sit under, M26 are semi dwarfing (around 3m) and dwarfing rootstocks M9 and M27 make smaller trees and can be trained and pruned into espaliers, fans or even grown in containers. Apples can also be trained into cordons, single stems with short side shoots – I’ve seen a row of these making an attractive and productive hedge. And step overs, condons grown horizontally around 45cm high, are perfect for lining a path or edging a bed. There are thousands of different apple varieties to choose from flowering and cropping at different times. There are six pollinating groups and its best to plant at least two apples from the same or adjacent groups so that they can pollinate each other. If there is an apple tree in a neighbouring garden, that may help too.
Early Varieties • Discovery. A popular disease resistant red dessert apple • Sunrise. One of the best early apples, red with a long season. • Worcester Pearmain. An early sweet red apple that crops in September and October.
Mid Season Varieties • Jupiter. Similar to Cox’s Orange Pippin but larger and redder in colour than Cox. • Lord Lambourne. A traditional English apple with crisp, juicy and sweet apples. Delicious!
Late Varieties • Blenheim Orange. A heritage variety. A lovely classic English variety with a distinctive flavour. 12 | SE23 - October 2020
• Topaz. A crisp, sharp dessert apple with red flushed skin. • Braeburn. A popular sweet, crisp apple. • Elstar One of the best modern apples with an excellent fruity flavour and good keeping quality. • Spartan. A popular heavy cropping dark red dessert apple. You can buy trees bare root between November and early March, or in containers for planting the rest of the year. Plant your tree in a warm position with free draining soil that gets around 6 hours of sun. Keep their bases weed free and mulch in the early years. Naomi Slade believes even small gardens can have an orchard. Check out her book: An Orchard Odyssey for more ideas.
