Buying Apple Trees

Help with Buying Apple Trees

Buying apple trees is a long term investment, so it's important to get the right trees from the start.
This site will explain all the important stuff - it's easy when you know how!

Think about the size and shape of apple tree to suit your garden

Your available space will determine the size of tree that you can grow. There are 2 groups of options:

1. Wire or Post Trained Apple Trees: These space-saving shapes are grown against walls, fences, posts or over arches.
   A popular form for growing along a fence is a cordon, while fans and espaliers are great for covering a wall.
   
   • You can buy suitable apple varieties as ready made cordons here.
   • To make a fan or espalier, buy a maiden sized tree (this is the smallest you can buy) and prune it into the desired shape.
   
   
2. Free Standing Apple Trees: These take up more room and give the biggest crops.
   A bush apple tree is simply a short tree with a main trunk about 1 metre tall and a final height of about 3 metres - great for most people's gardens and easy to harvest.
   If you more room, half standard trees are the biggest tree that can safely be harvested & pruned using a ladder.
   • You can buy both bush and half-standards from us.

Which starting size of Apple Tree should you buy?
We sell our apple trees in 4 starting sizes:

1. A year old, sapling apple tree is called a maiden and can be trained into any size or shape you desire.
2. For safe and easy harvesting in a limited space, a cordon apple tree is short and trained on a wire.
3. A bush shaped tree great for the average garden, with a short trunk that will keep its final height down to about 3 metres.
4. If you want a big tree as soon as possible, a half standard is the best size for you.
   

Rootstocks - We make them easy!

When you buy apple trees from us, we grow them on the most appropriate rootstock for the shape you buy.
If you want to know more, have a look at our Guide to Apple Tree Rootstocks.

Think about Pollination Partners

All apple trees need a pollination partner, which is another apple tree of a different variety that is in flower at about the same time.
Some apple trees are called self-fertile but, in the case of apples, this can be misleading. Without a pollination partner, self-fertile apple trees will produce fruit, but the crop will be smaller and the apples less tasty.
Cheat's tip to apple pollination: Crabapple trees are excellent pollinators of all other apple trees & one small crabapple will sort out many large apple trees.
For a full guide, have a look at our guide to Apple Tree Pollination.

Think about Fruit

Apples can be classed as eaters/dessert apples, cookers, juicers or cider apples and many are multipurpose.
Their flavours can be sweet, sharp, buttery or even like bananas, pineapples or lemon drops.
They can be ready to pick from August to November. Some apples improve with storage, while others are best eaten off the tree.
It is up to you to decide what you are after!

Harvesting Apples

Apple trees as a group have a long season, ranging from August to November.
Most apples store well and even improve after a couple of weeks off the tree (as a rule of thumb, early cropping apples do not store well and late cropping apples do).

To help you choose, this table lists all of our eating/dessert apple trees in order of picking dates.

Please note that this is just a quick guide: several apple tree varieties have quite long harvesting periods that straddle two or more months.
Where this is the case, we have listed the tree in the month when its first fruit will be ripe.

Delivery information:

• The planting and delivery season for bareroot apple trees in between November and March.
• A limited range of potted apple trees is available for the rest of the year - these are delivered in pots but will need to be planted out.
• You can place your order for bareroot apple trees at any time of year and choose a winter delivery date that suits you.
• We will not charge you until your plants are ready to be shipped.
• During the season, you will receive an e-mail to notify you of the delivery date,
• When they are delivered, we use a 24 hour courier service to get your apple trees to you in top condition.
• You can contact us on 01963 359 444 or info{@}ashridgetrees.co.uk if you have any questions or suggestions.
  

You can see our range of apple trees for sale here.