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[orangepippin]

That's correct, cordons are easier to manage if they are spur-bearers. Tip-bearers are in the minority though.

[FB.]

I've read somewhere that cordons are best fruiting on spurs rather than tip bearing so should I be avoiding the tip bearers.

Tip bearers or part-tip-bearers are more difficult to manage as trained forms, but not impossible if you are skilled and determined.

The lower-vigour tip-bearers, or the compact-growing tip-bearers are not a problem. High-vigour tip-bearers are not a good choice for restricted forms, although perhaps carefully considering the rootstock vigour may make them manageable.

I like part-tip-bearers because they have more attractive blossom displays and their constant renewal of fruiting wood means they cope better with neglect.

Tip-bearing also helps with fruit quality because most of the fruit is on the outer part of the canopy which gets the best sunlight. Cordon training tends to allow plenty of light to the fruit anyway, whether spur or tip bearer.

On the downside, poor pruning technique on tip-bearers can result in removal of all the next season's flower buds, which will also have the further downside of encouraging vigorous shoot growth, which can then get into a vicious cycle of vigorous growth, no fruit, hard pruning to control the tree and further vigorous/unfruitful growth as the tree fights back.

[boundtothesoil]

The variety "Gladstone" (not listed in the Welsh nursery but available from some others) was found growing as a wild tree near Kidderminster, so it must be a fairly tough variety - and it's not commonly grown.

Interesting that you should mention Gladstone. When I was reading up old books on how to perform hand crosses between varieties a few years ago, I came across the following in 'Fruit Growing: Modern Cultural Methods' by N.B. Bagenal (1939 ed, p. 35.).

" A very popular cross is that between the apples Cox's Orange Pippin and Gladstone."

[FB.]

Irish Peach has a reputation for being a pure tip-bearer, but in my experience of growing it, it is a partial tip-bearer just like many other varieties - including some varieties not listed as tip bearers!

I'm not sure whether the amount of tip-bearing and spur-bearing is related to climate. Quite likely a higher-rainfall climate encourages the plants to grow more and produce less fruit buds. My climate is usually surprisingly dry which severely stresses the trees and encourages them to produce a lot of blossom.
Perversely, a happy young tree doesn't produce much blossom. An unhappy young tree, or a stressed tree, or a sick tree, will produce large amounts of blossom. Trees often put on their best-ever blossom display just before they die, in a last gasp at reproducing themselves when they "know" death is imminent.

[Mikey]

Aftrr a few hours surfing on the phone I have decided on three!!

Annie elizabeth next to wyken pippin next to scrumptious. Hoping that the two slices of bread will fertlise the filling.

[Mikey]

Why is it that all dessert pears are early season, the mid and late season all seem to be perry varieties?

[chris]

What about that Bardsey island apple?

[yummersetter]

Concorde is good as a cordon, according to Keepers website. It keeps for quite a long time, I find they are ready to pick late Sept / early October. Its a Conference/ Comice cross so won't pollinate either but is partially self-fertile and gives a good crop at a young age.
From the FB list I'd veto Beauty of Bath as you should have apples that taste delicious, BofB is a lovely tree, beautiful blossom and very early fruit but not the best to eat. I'd add Sunset, Fortune and Orleans Reinette as good eaters, Peasgood Nonsuch as a cooker, with his Rev Wilkes. Orleans Reinette has the russet flavour without having a skin like sandpaper.

You don't have the luxury, with a dozen cordons, of growing apples just for sentimental, historic reasons - leave that to the National Trust or the like. You don't want to have to buy a supermarket Pink Lady to eat whilst looking at your tree covered in sour little green jobs that were grown in your area in 1835.

[FB.]

Aftrr a few hours surfing on the phone I have decided on three!!

Annie elizabeth next to wyken pippin next to scrumptious. Hoping that the two slices of bread will fertlise the filling.

Personally, I think Annie Elizabeth is triploid * and unlikely to be a good pollinator of other varieties. I don't think anyone has actually done the testing to prove/disprove it though.
Even though Annie is listed as self-fertile, triploids often show better self-fertility than diploids.
Many triploids - including Bramley - used to be labelled as self-fertile in late-1800's and early-1900's nursery catalogues.

*
My "evidence" for Annie being triploid:
Large, thick, rounded, glossy leaves.
Large, attractive blossom.
Large fruits which may suffer bitter pit if over-fertilised, like most large-fruited (often triploid) varieties.
Small, pale-coloured, unusual seeds.
Good all-round disease resistance.
Quite long-lived tree.
Thought to have been bred from the triploid Blenheim Orange.

[Mikey]

I was up until 2 this morning narrowing my search down, and now have about 20 varieties I'm looking at. Some weeding still to be done!!

I haven't got my list in work but if I can remember they were

Annie Elizabeth
Scrumptious
Wyken Pippin
Gladstone
Llandinam Pearmain
Bardsey
Sunset
Grange's Pearmain
Laxtons Superb
Brownlee Russet
Herefordshire Russett
Tower of Glamis


The following need a bit more research and info from mountain cider

Viv's Red
Fran's Flushed
Irene's Favourite
Pig Yr Wydd

I can't remember the others off the top of my head.

[Mikey]

Sorry missed your post Chris, I was looking at the bardsey last night, its supposed to have a flavour a bit like lemon drops which my daughter would love. She'll happily suck a lemon!!!

The russets do concern me a bit, do they have really tough skins, I mean would your children happily eat the skin?

[yummersetter]

Russet skin - some do, my Egremont is as if its wrapped in sandpaper, here in Somerset, but grown in other places its different. Others just have a sprinkling of russet by the stem and some flashes and streaks on the rest of the apple. I find that the most popular of my apples with kids is Sunset.
And . . ahem . . you may have overlooked my posting 'James Grieve and Kidd's Orange Red'. JG is tasty, good for cooking, eating, juicing and the most essential pollinator in my orchard, KOR has rose scented blossom and fruit, has a reliable, healthy crop, keeps till January and has the best flavour among my varieties.
We tend to overlook Cox's these days, but Queen Cox would be a good choice as you like that apple. There is talk of Coxes being disease ridden, but they're not here, and this area was full of Coxes Orange Pippin orchards.
I bet by the time it comes to tasting, you'll have that list of 400 apples to try

[FB.]

I'd scrap the Laxton's Superb - it seems to be prone to scab in many locations. Fruit suffers much worse than the leaves - most of it splitting and rotting on the tree, even "over here" in the drier parts of the UK.
Very tasty apples though, if you want to go down the route of spraying (which I disagree with).

Superb also produces a lot of fruit on the tips of long, slender, drooping branches, with not that many spurs (like Irish Peach). It tends to become very biennial after a few years. Laxton's Superb is also quite a vigorous variety and can make very large trees.

Pictures below of growth habit (drooping, sparse spurring) and scab problem:

[FB.]

Russet skin - some do, my Egremont is as if its wrapped in sandpaper, here in Somerset, but grown in other places its different.

For me, Egremont Russet is yellow-skinned with a deep orange sunny side. The skin is mostly smooth; any russeting is limited to a small amount near the stalk and the eye. Ashmead's Kernel is yellow skinned with orange stripes. Most varieties don't russet much for me - probably due to variations in climate, rainfall and soil.
I would assume that yummersetter's observations are a more useful guide to what you'll see from your trees.

[FB.]

'James Grieve and Kidd's Orange Red'. JG is tasty, good for cooking, eating, juicing and the most essential pollinator in my orchard, KOR has rose scented blossom and fruit, has a reliable, healthy crop, keeps till January and has the best flavour among my varieties.
We tend to overlook Cox's these days, but Queen Cox would be a good choice as you like that apple. There is talk of Coxes being disease ridden, but they're not here, and this area was full of Coxes Orange Pippin orchards.

It's funny, isn't it, that I've lost JG to canker (despite dry climate), also lost Egremont Russet to the same problem.
I've seen some very sickly (cankered) Kidd's and Cox's in my area too - and the problem seems to be becoming more noticeable in the last couple of years on the widely-grown Discovery too.
Cox suffers a lot from diseases here, as do many of its offspring - Ellison's Orange and most of the Cox offspring apart from Jupiter seem very prone to canker here, and seem to quite quickly lose their other resistances.
Ellison, Scrumptious and Discovery are also some of the worst for codling moth here.

On the other hand, some people struggle with scabby or cankery Blenheims or Fiesta/Red Pippin. But in my area Blenheim and Fiesta are indestructible. For me, apart from some bitter pit associated with poor performing MM106 (106 doesn't like my soil), Fiesta is immune to everything - canker, scab, mildew, codling moth, woolly aphid, the lot - and grows with the ferocity of a Bramley.