Cooking apple tree

[Brengirl]

Only personally FB. I havn't seen it's shape or flower let alone tasted it's fruit. My garden is all about design and placement of structures such as trees if you know what I mean.

[FB.]

Annie Elizabeth was used by the Victorians for ornamental orchards.
Both the flowers and fruit are attractive and the neat growth habit and disease resistance give a tree that shapes nicely and looks clean and tidy.

Annie is one of the best combinations of ornamental tree, flowers and fruit, with good disease resistance that keeps the whole tree looking good in all except the worst growing conditions.

In my opinion, Arthur Turner's susceptibility to mildew could result in a lot of unsightly foliage - blossoms can be damaged and rendered infertile by mildew, leaves can be small and white powder coated early in the season - later dying and turning brown crispy and tattered.

In a short while, I'll try to put up a picture of one of my seedlings that have been ruined by mildew during this hot, dry summer.

If you want an ornamental tree, I suggest avoiding any variety that has a susceptibility to one or more of the major apple diseases - unless you're prepared to spray.

[FB.]

.....as promised, a picture of one of my apple seedlings.
This seedling has been ruined by powdery mildew.
Many texts overlook how serious this disease can be for organic and spray-free growers.

Notice how all of the early-season leaves low down the stem have been killed.
The seedling is currently attempting to sprout new shoots from the top, but in only a week or two since the buds burst out, those new leaves have become infected - you can just about see that the new green leaves have a matt white (powdery) surface.
The leaves are initially covered with powdery fungal spores and later the leaves will die, shrivel and turn brown. The spores may sit in the environment, waiting to be blown by the wind onto young apple leaves.

Admittedly, this disease is more troublesome in drier areas and on poorer soils, but any organic grower is taking a chance when they try to grow any variety with a disease weakness.



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[Forestbird]

I would let others (like me!) be brave and try the modern varieties (as just one tree in a larger collection) because they're as yet unproven.

I suggest going with one of the suggestions on this thread as they have a long track recored of good performance:

Annie, Crawley, Derby, Grenadier or Wilks - and possibly Newton.

Annie would be my recommendation if you can give it some shelter from wind.

Some of the above can be bought mail-order here, if you can't find locally but want one now :
> Link <

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I have read FB's comments with great interest. I have a small garden on the South Wales coast devoted mainly to cottage garden flowers; in this I wish to grow a self-fertilizing apple tree on a rootstock M26.

It will be planted in a corner, not far from a south-facing wall and will be protected from the prevailing westerly wind by the house, the east by a 9' wooden fence. To the south, which faces the sea is a hedge. In this position the tree should be well protected
from wind. Bearing in mind much of FB's comments I have decided to chose Annie Elizabeth.

I would appreciate very much FB's confirmation of my choice,bearing in mind, that I am disabled, so my wife will take on much of the burden of looking after the tree, so I want it to be as easy as possible. Also, i would like to restrict the height of the tree to 8 feet.

[northepaul]

I have read FB's comments with great interest. I have a small garden on the South Wales coast devoted mainly to cottage garden flowers; in this I wish to grow a self-fertilizing apple tree on a rootstock M26.

It will be planted in a corner, not far from a south-facing wall and will be protected from the prevailing westerly wind by the house, the east by a 9' wooden fence. To the south, which faces the sea is a hedge. In this position the tree should be well protected
from wind. Bearing in mind much of FB's comments I have decided to chose Annie Elizabeth.

I would appreciate very much FB's confirmation of my choice,bearing in mind, that I am disabled, so my wife will take on much of the burden of looking after the tree, so I want it to be as easy as possible. Also, i would like to restrict the height of the tree to 8 feet.

What sort of soil do you have, Forestbird?

[Forestbird]

What sort of soil do you have, Forestbird?

Slightly acid, excellent for flowers, Northepaul

[FB.]

I have read FB's comments with great interest. I have a small garden on the South Wales coast devoted mainly to cottage garden flowers; in this I wish to grow a self-fertilizing apple tree on a rootstock M26.

It will be planted in a corner, not far from a south-facing wall and will be protected from the prevailing westerly wind by the house, the east by a 9' wooden fence. To the south, which faces the sea is a hedge. In this position the tree should be well protected
from wind. Bearing in mind much of FB's comments I have decided to chose Annie Elizabeth.

I would appreciate very much FB's confirmation of my choice,bearing in mind, that I am disabled, so my wife will take on much of the burden of looking after the tree, so I want it to be as easy as possible. Also, i would like to restrict the height of the tree to 8 feet.

Annie would certainly be a well-above-average performer in the wetter conditions of the Western side of the UK. Annie has good all-round pest and disease resistance, with attractive and good quality fruit on a neat-looking tree.
As mentioned; Annie's fruits are large and tend to swing around a lot in windy weather, so she needs wind protection, which, hopefully, your house, garden fence and a corner of a plot will give.
I think that M26 would be a good choice of rootstock and you should easily be able to keep it to 6-8feet height and spread (especially if, once the tree is up to the size you want, if you prune all the new shoots back to an inch or two in late July). With M26, be vigilant for woolly aphid attacks and deal with them as soon as seen or they will cause irreparable bark damage, bark splitting, deformity and subsequent disease-entry points.

I think that anything smaller than M26 is too weak to thrive without a lot of atention. Anything stronger than MM106 will get too large. In view of the wetter climate in the West, I'd suggest M26 in favour of MM106 since I find that M26 is less prone to the wet-weather diseases such as canker, crown rot and other root rots. M26 may also give the tree a little more resistance to apple scab, which can be very troublesome in wet areas.

Given the very wet conditions sometimes seen in some parts of the Western UK, you may find that no apple variety will thrive and that even the most disease-resistant varieties will be so overwhelmed that their defences collapse.
Do other gardens in your area have apple trees? That would be a promising sign.

So, yes, I think that you have made an excellent variety/rootstock choice, but I am aware that some Western areas can be too wet for apples to do well.

I would also suggest that you look at:

"Cornish Aromatic", which is reputed to have extremely high resistance to wet-weather disases, but is not self-pollinating and can be light/erratic cropping.

"Belle de Boskoop" may also be a consideration, having originated from the damp/windy/waterlogged coastal country of Holland, but it is of no value as a pollinator for either itself or any other variety. Although its fruits are quite resistant to scab, the leaves are not resistant.

"Egremont Russet" is self-fertile, has good resistance to pests, canker and scab, but, like Boskoop, the leaves are not resistant to scab. It can also suffer from bitter pit.

"Farmer's Glory" is a less-well-known variety, but apparently very resistant to wet weather diseases.

"London Pippin", "May Queen" and "Monarch" have strong scab resistance, but I'm not sure whether their canker resistance would be adequate.

In the first instance, I think that Annie Elizabeth/M26 would be a good choice, but if it can't handle the conditions, you may have to resort to varieties for extreme conditions (listed above) and if the M26 roots can't handle it, you may need to try M9 or the newly-released M116 rootstock, which can handle very heavy soils, but the wood and roots of M9 are very brittle and the tree may need staking to prevent if breaking off or blowing over in stormy conditions.

[elizajay]

I am buying a cooking apple tree too - the Annie Elizabeth that FB mentioned.
It has very good reviews everywhere.
Can I direct you to this lot, who seem very knowledgeable:

Keepers Nursery - possibly the largest range of fruit trees and soft fruit plants in the world

Hope that helps

I agree, go to Keepers Nursery website and they give you pollination partners for all their trees.

[Forestbird]

I am writing to thank FB for his invaluable and detailed advice. Today I contacted my supplier of plants and trees to order Annie Elizabeth on Rootstock M26. She, my supplier, not Annie Elizabeth , is quite informative on gardening matters, but confessed she had not heard of Annie Elizabeth before, but it was the first name that came up when she consulted her catalogue. This suggests that there are not many Annie Elizabeths around this part of the country.

I shall be her pioneer in South Wales. I expect delivery later in the Autumn and I'll contact you again next Spring to let you know my progress. Again many thanks for your kind response to my query.

[FB.]

Forestbird, out of curiosity, which varieties are the ones that your supplier normally offers?
Presumably what they offer is either all the popular types (Cox, Gala, Braeburn, Bramley, Golden Delicious etc), or perhaps what they supply are very specialised varieties that might be bought-in because they do well in your area.

I hope your Annie does well. I'd be interested to hear from you in the future to find out how well Annie performs.
Annie is not common because of her tendency to have the large fruits break off in the wind - before they're properly ripe (although windfalls might still cook quite well). Otherwise Annie's an excellent variety that should be healthy and productive in all but the most extreme parts of the UK.
Of course, "resistant" doesn't mean that it'll never get attacked by disease, but it usually means that the disease won't happen too often, or won't spread too far before the trees defences stop it, or that you'll have plenty of opportunity to prune-out small diseased areas before the disease manages to slowly spread.
Annie will certainly tolerate diseases a lot better than the shop-bought varieties.

[Forestbird]

FB. My supplier mentioned a number of varieties including Bramley, but when I specified my wish for a tree that would grow to about 8ft. she suggested the M266 Rootstock and named the following varieties that my wife wrote down - Arthur Turner, Grenadier, Lord Derby (described as prolific & self-fertile) Peasgood Nonsuch (practically self-fertile?) Rev. W.Wilkes and Edward VII.

I fancied Rev.Wilkes until she told me it was Biennial, my next choice was Lord Derby. She suggested I do a little research before deciding. These researches lead me to Feeling Fruity and your interesting exchanges with BrenGirl.

I'm sure that you have gathered that I know next to nothing about growing apples. My past interest in gardening has been mostly confined to designing and redesigning my own garden and growing flowers. I enjoy reading "The English Garden" magazine to which I subscribe and visiting National Trust Gardens where disabled buggies are available. It was whilst looking through the walled garden at Wimpole Hall, in your county, during the summer that we first decided to grow an apple tree.

I have been glad to read your detailed advice and I shall be glad to keep you informed of progress her after I receive delivery of the tree which I expect in late October.

[Forestbird]

FB. Sorry about the typos I meant M26 Rootstock.

[FB.]

Grenadier, Lord Derby and Reverend Wilks have good all-round disease resistance.
Rev.Wilks does have a habit of becoming biennial, but many varieties will often fall into some kind of minor biennial habit.
Rev Wilks is also quite a slow/small grower, whereas Lord Derby is quite a fast/large grower.

It is often possible to improve small trees with biennial bearing by pinching-out half of the blossom buds during late winter. The blossom buds can be identified as they tend to be large, protruding, furry and are the first to swell in late winter. Leaf buds tend to be small, smooth, flat and tend to swell later than the blossom buds.
Some people manually thin the fruit, but I don't think that it's as effective, nor as quick and easy as nipping the buds.