Apple Pollination Group C: Mid-Season Flowering Varieties

A quick word on how apple pollination actually works

Apples are mostly self-unfruitful — a tree can't pollinate its own blossom. It needs pollen from a different variety, delivered by visiting bees, and both trees have to be flowering at the same time for anything to happen. Since bloom dates shift depending on the variety, growers sort apples into flowering groups by when they typically blossom each spring. Stick to the same group, or one group along in either direction, and you've solved the timing problem without much fuss.

Varieties in Group C

Everything listed here flowers in this mid-season window and will pollinate happily with the others.

A note on triploid varieties

A few well-known apples — Bramley's Seedling among them — are triploid: their pollen is sterile, so they can't return the favour to whatever's pollinating them. A triploid tree still needs a pollinator nearby, but that pollinator then needs a second variety to pollinate it in turn. In practice, that means three trees rather than two if a triploid is in the mix. Look out for the triploid marker on the relevant product pages so you know to plan for it.

Need a partner outside Group C?

Bloom times blur at the edges of each group, so Group B (early-mid) and Group D (late) varieties both overlap enough with Group C to cross-pollinate successfully. For the full compatibility picture across every group, our pollination guide covers the lot.