How do I care for a young apple tree?

Seeded from a pink lady apple last year, I grew it indoors until it got to about 18 inches high. This spring I pot planted it outdoors and it's now reached about 3 foot high. I intend to plant it out in the garden once it can take care if itself but I'm a bit concerned about the colder weather getting to it now with Autumn upon us.

Do I need to give it any special care or cover it over during the cold weather or will it be OK to leave it out?

 

Oh ok. I wasn't sure about the cold weather and the winter frost killing it with it being so young so thought it best to check before I made a permanent planting. Thanks!

 

Just before you plant it ... are you sure you want to grow a from-seed apple tree?

Apple trees are not very expensive - in fact the cost is trivial compared to the harvest it will give in a lifetime - but grafted onto a suitable rootstock trees are available for all sizes of garden space - from small ones in a pot through ones trained onto a wall or similar, and up to monster big trees. Known entity with the flavour of the fruit too.

 

it would be better to buy a small grafted tree. your plant that you have grown from seed may not produce any apples and if it does they may be horrible in-edible crab apples. you might as well try it out for your own experimentation though if you have the room.

 

I would advise against even doing that. It will be 10 years until the tree bears fruit ... if you really want to try breeding your own it would be much better to graft the seedling onto a better rootstock, that would give you apples within 5 years, maybe even within 3 years.

Even if I was growing an apple for firewood I would want a grafted tree - grafted onto the fastest growing rootstock available! Wood chips for smoking is about the only thing (give how little you need) where just growing from seed might give acceptable returns

 

I see. I just wanted the satisfaction of planting a tree that I'd grown from seed myself so that in years to come I can say, 'see that big tree? I grew that from an apple which your mother bought.'

If I just wanted an apple tree I could have gone and bought one but it doesn't have the same satisfaction and sentiment as one that I've nurtured from seed. I just wanted to plant something that in many years to come will not only bear fruit but I can say that I grew it from practically nothing. Kind of makes it a bit more personal.

 

im sure you will be able to buy apple seeds in packs that you will be able to sow yourself, that will be true to type. but the ones you get from apples bought or picked from somewhere unknown, will give terrible results at best.

 

Personally I would get a huge buzz from grafting my own apple tree. Would that do instead?

Not sure how Apple rootstocks are raised - they might be from seed, otherwise they will be from cuttings. Either way you would need to grow one from special seed, or buy a rootstock.

Then take a piece of an apple tree of a variety you like and graft it onto the rootstock that you have grown. (You can graft more than one variety onto a single rootstock plant to make a Family Tree if you like - but there is some need to balance the various varieties that you graft on, and to get ones that have the same pollination group too).

If you have friends with an apple tree of suitable variety you can use a piece from that, if not then apple "scion wood" is readily available in the grafting season of any variety you want. That might fall outside the realms of "grew it myself" though?

Lots of other things that you can grow from seed, but rather a lot of fruit is not done that way I'm afraid.

In terms of trees that you might grow from seed a Horse Chestnut from a Conker would be easy (I get several each year from Conkers that the Squirrels have "stored" - we don't have any conkers that are particularly close to our garden). Its a big tree though so, ultimately, not really suited to a small garden.

Eucalytpus is rewarding as a tree. It has a relatively "narrow" canopy, and can be chopped back hard if it gets out of hand, so can be contained in a small garden. They grow very quickly too, so rewarding to grow from seed. But ... you'd need to buy seed, I don't suppose you will find any in the greengrocers :( and I am fairly doubtful you will easy find any walking a public footpath, for example. They have a reputation for dropping branches when mature though - but to avoid that you could cut it hard when it gets to 20 feet, or even every year to keep it as a bush.

Beech, Ash, Sycamore ... all easy from seed.

Or you could grow a Bonsai tree from seed? There's a whole new obsession right there!

 

Yes I guess I could graft it if you're sure that planting the one I've grown is such a bad idea and wont give good results. I wasn't expecting fruit right away and was prepared to wait 5 plus years but even so if you don't think it will ever give results then maybe grafting is a better alternative. I have no experience in this and wouldn't want to end up killing it off after I've spent growing it. I'll try to read up about it and what I need to do and check when the best time of year is to do it. Any advice on grafting would be appreciated then. Thanks. It's just a seed from an apple I bought from Tescos. I just wanted to see if I could do it and now it's grown this much I'd like to keep it going and plant it by the entrance to our house.

 

I've never grafted anything ... although I have a fair understanding of what is involved. Only not done it because I am a coward, although commercially it is done so often that I don't think it can be hard. JWK graft's all his own Tomatoes - that's got to be much harder than grafting a hardwood subject ...

Plenty of advice on the internet, but you might want to look for the sort of grafts where the parent plant's growth is retained until the graft has taken - that way if your graft doesn't work you haven;t decapitated the parent plant! You could probably graft half a dozen pieces up the side of the parent, and then once they have taken decide where you are going to cut it back to, which should increase your chances of success

 

It's easy, but expensive if grafting varieties you can buy from Lidl or Aldi for a few pounds each, so I've only used that method to propagate cider apple trees and varieties of 'eaters' I can't get for a few quid each.

 

Expensive? Buying in the rootstock and scions perhaps ??

 

Yes, I normally buy enough from here http://www.hedging.co.uk/acatalog/Index_Apple_Trees_20.html#aRSTK1
get a discount, plus a further 10% loyalty card discount and use my own scions, many of which are 'trimmings' from previously discounted bare root bought stock, or from own apples.

 

Thanks. Buy cheap apple plants from Lidl / Aldi and graft your own on? Might be cost effective if you only want to do one or two - or would the existing presence of a scion for the apple variety scupper things?