Where to order online - Apple tree for the patio?

[funstuie]

I want to get a small apple tree as a present for my wife. It will have to potted as we only have a patio and we currently rent so I would want to move it if we do move somewhere else.

I was in whyvales last week and they had dwarf apple trees but they were £30 which is a lot for one plant.

Does anyone know where online I could order a suitable tree?

I found this place:

Welcome | Parker's Wholesale (products -> fruit -> fruit trees) and some of their trees are really cheap and the minimum order is 1 so would be perfect but I don't know if any of them would be suitable to grow in a pot.

[FB.]

I would buy a tree from a garden centre.
It should then be clearly labelled with the rootstock. You will need rootstock M27, (or possibly M26) for container growing on a patio. Anything else will be far too strong growing and might not want to fruit until it's 10ft tall.

Why? I hear you ask....

Firstly, you will be able to hand-pick a nicely shaped tree that is about three years old. Most of the pruning work (to train the tree to the correct shape) will have been done for you.
Mail order trees will be smaller and since it's luck of the draw as to which tree gets sent to you, you might end up with a badly shaped one that will take years of careful pruning to shape properly. I have many apple trees and, to be honest, half of mail-order specimens are ugly in some way. Somtimes they have a nasty scar at the graft line. Sometimes their branches are poorly positioned. Sometimes the trunk is badly bent. You might be lucky, but I wouldn't take the chance, for a tree that will be in prominent view on a patio.
These "deformities" are not a problem for an orchard tree, but are very unsightly in a patio pot.
Shipping plants through the post/courier system costs about £10 per go, so that's an extra expense. They can get quite a bettering while in transit that damages the new shoots.
Unfortunately, many of the cosmetic defects and the odd broken shoot probably won't be adequate reason to return a tree that you're not happy with.
Finally, fruit trees are normally shipped "bare-root" during the winter. They have no leaves, so are more compact and less prone to damage. The wood has also hardened for the winter, making them more resistant to damage.
At this time of year, apple trees are leafing out, so that bare-root is not available.
During their journey to you - which can be up to a week - living plants easily dry out.
I have also found that garden-centre fruit trees can be established more quickly than bare-root trees, since bare-root trees lose half their roots when ripped out of the ground. It takes them one or two seasons to recover.

Even mail-order specimens will cost £15-£20, plus add another £10 carriage fee and you've not gained over the hand-picked tree from the garden centre.

If you're still determined to go for mail order, then I would suggest looking at:

Click > Blackmoor < Click

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[FB.]

Just had a good look around your link.

It mentions 300cm - three metres final height. That's about 10ft height and perhaps slightly wider spread.
It sounds like the rootstock is MM106, which is too strong for most varieties in a patio pot.

With a price of £5-£10, they will almost certainly be "maidens". In other words, they will be a single stem, about 4ft high and about half-inch think.
They will need full pruning and training for the next few years, to transform them into a proper, productive shape for an apple tree.

At such low prices, it also sounds as if they're "bare-root". It may be too late to buy them for planting now - they might end up shipping your tree in November!

[funstuie]

Thanks for the advice folks. I think I will just stump up the money for one from the garden centre.

[Rossa]

I bought a Supercolumn apple tree from chrisbowers.co.uk They're designed for pots on patios, which my neighbour has done, though I've put mine in a side border. About £18 plus delivery.

I got the Scrumptious apple, my neighbour got Saturn and another one, sorry can't remember which one. All are self fertile so don't need another apple to pollinate with. They grow to no more than about 7-8' with short side spurs for fruit so only need 2' between trees if you want more than one. You should get about 30 apples from one tree.

I planted mine out on 1 April and the apple blossom is well out, but my neighbours 2 are a bit slower. I also got a pear, cherry and golden gage so it'll be interesting to see what we get.

Pot size they recommend is 18" wide/deep and use either an Osmacote tab (slow release feed) or water regularly with a seaweed feed.
_________
"..I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity.." Tom Lehrer

[poly]

I bought a couple a patio apple and pear from Blackmoor earlier this year. They arrived well packaged and I am pleased with the trees which have both flowered. I do agree though its not the same as picking out the tree yourself.