Ornamental Apple tree - help identify?

Hi,

Could anyone possibly advise as to what the following tree is. We've had our nephew come round who decided it would be a good idea to push our daughter into one of these in our rented house which culminated in the tree snapping at the base so we need to replace it with the same if at all possible.

Many thanks in advance.

 

Yeah.........bitter as hell! Great cooked up but defo not an eating apple!

 

Sorry if I am stating the obvious, but when you tried the apples (last year, obviously, as this year's early apples are nowhere near ready yet), how did you know that they were ready to eat? How much did you have to twist the apple before it came off in your hand?

 

I tried the windfall first

 

This year, or last year?
(Sorry about this, but if you tasted one of the "June drop" apples, of course it would have been bitter, sour, and dry)

 

Last year, couldn't tell you when though I've been asleep since then

Humour me though. If we think it's an eating apple when's the best time to pick and eat?

 

I'm trying, @scatz !

When it is ready depends on the variety it is....
(Early Worcester is ready in August, others, eg russets, you need to wait until the end of October).

How to tell if an apple is ready to use:
-gently take the weight of the apple in your hand, but not enough to move up the branch it is on
-gently take hold of the apple
-give it a 1/4 turn, ie 90 degrees, around the stem (ie the stem is the axis)

If it is ripe, the apple will come off in your hand. You can then double check that the apple is ready to use by cutting it in half along its circumference (think "along the equator"). The pips should be a very dark brown, or black. If the pips have paler patches, then the apple is still not quite ready.

This applies to cookers or eaters. Cider apples, you normally wait for them to actually fall off the tree!

What makes me a little cautious of your assumption that it is an ornamental apple?
-Doesn't look like a crab apple, either the fruit or the tree
-looks like an eater
-"bitter as hell" - this does not describe a cooking apple (or an eater, obviously!) when they are ready to use. Sharp, yes, sour even. But bitter? No.... (By bitter, do you mean that all liquid in your mouth seems to have been sucked away?)

 

Perhaps dry/sour may have been a better description. The only reason I made mention of it being ornamental is because that's what the landlady told us it was when we viewed the property. We don't have direct dealing with her now as it's done through an agency so I can't directly ask her what it is. I have no clue on trees myself so I took what she said at face value

In the two years we've been in the property it hasn't grown any more!

 

Ah-ha!
Dry/sour makes much more sense. This is a fairly accurate way of describing an apple that is very unripe. Fruit trees often drop some of their crop well before they are ready, op if they have set too many fruit. With apples, this is often referred to as the June Drop, although my trees are dropping quite dramatically now, in mid-July, as they are stressed with a period of extended drought. The colour on the fruit does not mean they are ripe. My Gloster 69 has dropped two apples in the last week, with a lovely rose colour, because of the drought...

Most apples, when nearly ripe, or ripe, have some sort of juice.

The tree has not grown in two years - this means it's on a dwarfing rootstock.

I take it this is an old photo, as you say the main stem was broken by your nephew...
Do you know when the photo was taken? This might help in guessing the variety, as knowing the colour and size of the fruit, at what time of year, helps to narrow down the options. For example, of my 4 eating apple trees, only one of them has colour on the majority of the fruit. Two of the trees that crop end August still have green fruit. (Property owners don't always know what is in the garden - the previous owner here only knew that there "might be an apple tree", when pointing to what I already knew, in March, was three apples, a pear and a cherry, just by leaf shape - he had lived here for 3 years!!)

All that said, if the property owner said "an ornamental apple", then you could probably get away with replacing it with any eating apple, grafted on dwarf rootstock!

 

Thanks for the info, makes sense.

The house is only 3 years old and the landlady was the one who planted the trees, nevertheless, I suspect she's no arborist

As for the photo, we had two of the same, this is the unbroken one! The photo was taken when I posted

Luckily there is a sapling growing from the roots of the broken one so we may get away with leaving that to do it's thing and take the place of the broken one. I've informed the agents but have had no word back yet.