Core Blimey eating apple trees

Core Blimey apples

Core Blimey is similar to the super-popular Cox apple, but it's so much easier to grow. It fruits in October, producing lovely red eating apples that are aromatic, crisp and juicy texture. Strong and resilient, it was bred specifically for good disease resistance and vigour, so it's perfect for planting in almost any area of the UK. The apples will store well in a cool, dry place until January. It's a valuable addition to our huge range of apple trees for sale.

Growing in the know

Core Blimey is a spur-bearing apple tree on a semi-dwarfing rootstock (MM106), which makes it suitable for training into cordons or espaliers against a wall or fence. This arrangement looks particularly gorgeous in a formal garden, but it's practical too, as it reduces the space your tree takes up, so even if your garden is small, you can make room for one by pruning it correctly. It also gives you more space for planting other apples – good news as not only will you have more variety but you'll have a guaranteed pollinating partner. Core Blimey is in pollination group B (this system simply categorises apple trees into flowering periods), and it will fruit better with a different variety of apple of the same group planted nearby. Try Egremont Russell, for example, a tasty eater that will give you a contrasting flavour to add to the fruit bowl. Core Blimey tolerates of a wide range of soil types, including poor, and grassed orchard sites. If you're growing it as an orchard or specimen tree, it's sturdy enough to take a climber trained through it: repeat-flowering A Shropshire Lad, for example, would make a beautiful partner.

Features

• Use: eating
• Pruning: spur bearer
• Pollination: pollination group B
• Picking: October
• Colour: red. Stores until January

Cockney roots

So what about that decidedly Cockney-sounding name? Well, Core Blimey was developed for the London Urban Orchard Project, a charity involved in London community orchards and fruit trees. .