Standard Apple

A request on behalf of my brother please.

Has anyone attempted to grow apple trees as standards? My brother has grown some Cox's from seed, they are now about nine inches tall and he wants to have a go at growing them as standards, any info on how to go about this would be appreciated please.

 

Hope he's got a good ladder Sheal, grown from seed it'll probably get to about 30 foot high.

 

Blimey Zigs, he's not going to like that!

 

Trees you buy are grafted onto various dwarfing rootstock, apples you see growing on railway banks that have grown from discarded seed are often enormous.

The fruit more than likely will be different to the Cox too, depends what other tree had sex with it.

 

I think:

Apple (and main other fruit) from seed is hit and miss what variety / flavour you will get. Its a long enough wait until they crop, and (for me at least!) would be a huge disappointment to then have a plant with lousy flavour / tiny apples / whatever.

Apple trees cost about £15 to buy (in bare root season, dunno about ones in pots). You can choose a rootstock to suit your garden size - either a full blown tree, or a mini Cordon that will grow a single stem - in a pot even. Apple trees produce several kilograms of apples each year (well, pot grown ones obviously won't produce that much) so for me the maths are simple that over the lifetime of the tree it will save its cost many times over - plus nice fresh apples picked straight from the tree

You can even get Family apple trees with several varieties grafted on to a single plant, so you get some variety

 

Thanks Kristen, my brother has grown these just as an experiment really and will keep them in pots. If he takes out the tips perhaps they may perform as a dwarf variety. It'll be interesting to see what results he gets.

 

If he does that he won't get any fruit unless they are a "tip producer" variety ...

Sorry, but as you will have noticed I take a different view which is that its a waste of time.

Of course the apple Discovery, which has been a huge success, was grown from a chance-planted Pip ... hence the name

 

If he really wants to pursue this, Sheal, then he just lets the stem keep going upwards, gradually snipping off the sideshoots from the bottom of the stem, until it reaches the desired height. Then he'd take out the growing point, then 3 years minimum to form the crown. Then ??? years until the first fruit arrive. Hope he's got lots of patience

 

Sounds like a lot of fun. Life is about the journey, not the destination.

 

That explains a lot about SNCF and British Rail

 

He might have the patience Noisette but like me time might be the difficult bit.

 

And he'll be needing good dentures to enjoy the fruits of his labours.....