Ballerina apple trees

[southlondongardener]

Can these be grown in large pots ? eg Ballerina Flamenco etc ?

[Carl]

I just looked up that particular variety on google, it only grows to 6', if yours is the same, it should definitly be OK in a big pot. Most varieties will be OK, as I understand it, as long as the rootstock is not too vigorous and it is watered and fed diligently and pruned well. I have a conference pear on an unknown rootstock that has fruited for 2 yrs now and seems perfecly happy.

Hope that helps,

Carl

[southlondongardener]

Thanks

Thanks for that. I have 2 M27 apple trees pixie and ashmead's kernel in pots and so far they have not been doing too well.
I think the problem was that I did not water enough and they were a) in shade and b) in too small pots. However they should be ok now.

But it is nice to hear this is possible. I get lots of grief from family saying this is impossible and stupid.

[southlondongardener]

One extra question I have some space in my raspberry bed 4 ft. Could I put a bailerina there ?

[MissGreen]

I think you definetely could. If it grows to vigorous just prune it back, but it will be much happier there, and less trouble for you

[pigletwillie]

I grow two in pots on the allotment, just feed and water well and do give them as big a pot as you can.

[Snadger]

At present all of my fruit trees are in large pots. All self pollinating, I have one each of Apple,Pear,Plum,Cherry and Apricot.
All were last years bare rooted plants and the apple did particularily well giving me a dozen apples this year. The Apricot will have to be brought indoors for it's flowering period, but once it has flowered and hopefully set fruit it will be taken outside again!
Mine were only put in pots because I had a newly aquired allotment and wasn't sure where to put them. The beauty of pots is that you can move them around to sunny areas or out of wind etc.
No idea about how well they will grow long-term in pots, but I plan to scrape a bit of soil off each year and add a layer of well rooted manure! As the tree is going to be in the pot for a good few years it is worth giving them a decent sized root run and watering regularily seems to be the key to a happy plant!

[southlondongardener]

Thanks for all the replies.

[George Gray]

Ballerina Trees

i have a ballerina apple tree in my fruit bed on the allotment. It's cheek and jowel next to raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries and this year produced a bumper crop.
Interestingly i had it in a fruit bed at home for years and it produced lots of leaf but not one apple. So I threatened it, dug it out and put it bare-rooted in a hole in the allotment with no fertiliser just a lot of water. Since then it has produced apples every year! I think it was enjoying the good life too much in my humus-rich fetilised bed at home!

By the way I have never pruned it. Does one need to prune them at all?

[littlemark]

I inherited a ballerina at my last house which had not been pruned for several years at a guess. It had grown as high as the second floor of the house, had many upward growing spurs, and produced plenty of fairly ordinary apples, many of which we couldn't easily reach. If pot grown there shouldn't be much need to prune a ballerina, but free growing in good soil they can put on more growth than I thought possible and may need a bit of (Summer) pruning to keep in check.

Ballerina's were originally developed for inter-planting in commercial orchards to help with polination This means that fruit quality was not the highest priority and unless the tree form suits your garden, or you need a pollinator that doesn't take up too much room, I wouldn't really recommend them.

Mark

[southlondongardener]

Ballerina's were originally developed for inter-planting in commercial orchards to help with polination This means that fruit quality was not the highest priority and unless the tree form suits your garden, or you need a pollinator that doesn't take up too much room, I wouldn't really recommend them.

Mark

Really I did not know that where did you read that ?

Thanks for the advice about pruning. I have already bought one so it is too late now.

[psegarra]

ballerina apples

I'm having trouble finding these in the US. Does anyone know how to start a ballerina apple? I've heard that an apple sapling can be grafted to a certain rootstock.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[quark1]

I bought 3 trees 2 x apple, 1 x pear around 3 yrs ago.

Placed into pots lined with newspaper and a few of those gel water retaining granules to start. 2006 was a very hot, dry summer and it was amazing to me that I was able to keep 'em going!

Last year the 'red' apple gave up around 7 fruits - not great but any success is encouraging for the likes of me.

I have looked at my trio today and have noticed that all have good buds and one (the green apple) has at least 20-30 buds which are blossom buds already - I'm so pleased.

It would be the icing on the cake if the pear also made a show this year.

The red apples were not great for taste/texture but I'm sure a little imagination might find a juicing or purée use.

They are un-named varieties but presume they are grafted onto a less vigorous root stock to enable pot housing.

[southlondongardener]

That is encouraging especially as I planted 2 trees in pots last year.

However ballerinas are slightly different. They are trees with no branches i.e just a pole and fruit off the side.

[quark1]

'South' - I think mine are meant to be ballerinas - I've let the sides grow just a little to bulk out - but basically the fruits/blossoms are about the centre stem.