Growing the Arkansas Black Apple Tree

Size and Appearance

The Arkansas Black Apple Tree is a vigorous, upright apple tree growing between 15 and 20 feet tall, with a similar spread. Allow room for its final size when planting. The glossy green leaves are oval, with serrated edges, and they turn yellow or orange in fall. White flowers in spring, on the bare branches, herald the start of fruit development, and this tree needs a different variety of apple growing nearby to produce a significant crop of fruit. In an ornamental garden, most crab apples, especially those with white flowers, will pollinate just about any fruit-bearing apple tree. If you are growing this tree with other apple varieties, most will act as pollinators, including ‘Granny Smith’, ‘Jonathan’, ‘Gala’, ‘Yellow Delicious’, and ‘Rome Beauty’. The Arkansas Black Apple Tree is a good pollinator for many other varieties, so all your trees will benefit.

Fruit develops steadily over the summer, and this late variety is ready for harvest in October and November, so it’s ideal to grow with early-ripening varieties, so you always have apples available. When ripe the apples are round to oblong, with a uniform dark red skin and white flesh. The skin darkens in storage, becoming almost black. The yield is high, and trees begin to bear fruit within 3 years of planting. When first picked there is an acidic bite, but it mellows in storage to a sweet, honey or cider flavor. Like other heirloom varieties the flavor is complex, subtle, and variable. The white flesh is crisp, becoming softer by the end of the 6 or even 8 months this variety can be stored for. It is an excellent juicing apple, and also ideal for baking, pies and for making apple jelly.

Using the Arkansas Black Apple Tree in Your Garden

Grow the Arkansas Black Apple Tree as an interesting lawn tree, or in the corners of your yard. Plant it among others, spacing the trees 15 feet apart, in a home orchard. It is attractive in bloom, and also when heavy with ripe apples.

Hardiness

This variety is hardy across most of the country, growing in warmer, sheltered areas in zone 4, and everywhere else. It requires 800 to 900 chilling hours, when temperatures are above freezing but below 45 degrees. This means it won’t grow properly in zone 9, except in the northwest.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Plant the ‘Arkansas Black’ Apple in full sun for the best harvest, although a couple of hours of shade each day will do little harm. Grow it in any well-drained soil, avoiding wet areas and heavy clays. Enrich the soil when planting, and use organic mulch over the root zone to conserve moisture and feed your tree. Do not allow grass to grow beneath a tree less than 10 years old. Water regularly when young, and avoid long periods of dryness, as this will affect fruit quality.

Maintenance and Pruning

The Arkansas Black Apple Tree is very resistant to rust disease, and somewhat resistant to fire blight and apple scab, so it doesn’t need elaborate spraying or treatments. Pests too are relatively rare, and this vigorous tree is an easy apple to succeed with. Prune in late winter or early spring, during a dry period, and develop a central leader with radiating branches at low angles. You can adjust the angle by tying strings to rocks to pull young branches downwards. Spreading branches are easier to harvest from and ripen better, letting more sun through. Keep the growth open, and don’t allow branches to become crowded. Trim back new side-shoots to several inches long, to encourage the development of fruiting spurs. Once your tree is carrying a significant crop you will probably need to thin out the fruit, otherwise your harvest will be many very small apples. Remove excess fruit when they are the diameter of a quarter, leaving just one in each cluster.

To store for the long-term, wrap each apple in a piece of newspaper and lay out without touching on a shelf. The storage areas should be as close to freezing as possible, but not actually frozen, and it should have a 90% humidity level. The closer you can come to these conditions, the longer your apples will last.

History and Origin of the Arkansas Black Apple Tree

The apple variety called ‘Arkansas Black’ probably appeared as a lucky seedling tree, and it was formally described in 1886, having been first seen fruiting around 1870. Its exact origin isn’t clear, with some saying it was found by a man called John Crawford as early as the 1840s, while others suggest it was a John Braithwaite. It has also been claimed by De Kalb Holt, the brother of Earl Holt, who owned the first commercial orchard in Arkansas. In the 1870s it launched the Arkansas apple industry, being widely publicized, and at one point making up 20% of the state’s apple crop. Fruit was shipped across the country on the new railway lines, but the Great Depression of the 1930s destroyed the apple producers. Since then it has been a rare, specialist variety.

Buying the Arkansas Black Apple Tree at the Tree Center

We love having wonderful heirloom apples to offer you, like the Arkansas Black Apple Tree. Whether you grow it in your ornamental garden, or establish a home orchard, you will love this unique tree, its amazing color, and the delicious flesh. Nothing will be wasted with this long-storage variety, and you can take your time to bake and make jelly. Begin your time as an apple grower, or add to your existing collection – either way, order now, as this variety is rarely available, and is snapped up by collectors as soon as it comes into stock.

Gardeners in warm areas of the country often see the apple as a northern fruit, and something they cannot grow, but that is not true. The Ein Shemer Apple Tree was bred and developed in Israel, and it will grow in places with almost no winter. Unlike most other apple tree varieties, it needs just a couple of hundred hours in winter of temperatures below 45 degrees, and that happens even in Florida. If you thought home-grown apples were out of your reach, think again.

Gardeners in cooler areas will also want to grow the Ein Shemer Apple Tree, because it is renowned for starting to fruit when still very young, and it produces apples very early in the year – as early as June in warm regions. There is yet another reason to grow this apple everywhere.

Growing Ein Shemer Apple Trees

Unlike almost all other apples, Ein Shemer will produce a good crop when grown alone, making it ideal for small gardens, where you want to grow apples, but only have room for one tree. Very few apple trees can do this, so it is a top choice whenever a single tree is called for. If you do have more room, plant the other apple for hot regions – the Anna Apple Tree. Both of these trees will crop when grown alone, but both will give a heavier crop when grown together. No other trees can pollinate these two varieties, because they flower so early in the year – in Florida and southern California they can bloom as early as January.

Planting and Initial Care

The Ein Shemer apple tree is easy to grow in almost any garden soil, but it will not grow well in soil that is constantly wet. When planting, make sure you plant it at the same depth as it is in the pot, and be very careful to not bury that ‘kink’ you see lowdown on the stem. That is where the tree has been grafted onto a special root system to control its size and vigor. Any shoots that might come from below that point should be removed flush with the stem, as they will draw strength from the tree, and never produce fruit.

Choose a sunny spot for your tree, and in zones 8 and 9 it will benefit from some afternoon shade. Water your tree weekly in the first season, and regularly during dry periods after that. Begin to train your tree from the beginning. If you have plenty of room, you can develop an open, vase-shaped tree, but it is often better, and saves space, to develop a single central stem, with branches radiating from it. Use string tied to rocks to spread the branches outwards, as narrow, upright branches can snap under the weight of a heavy crop.

If you want larger apples for eating, thin out the tiny apples when they are the size of a quarter. Leave just one or two in each cluster, and space them about 6 inches apart along the branches. You will harvest less weight, but the apples will be larger, and better quality. There is also more waste in small apples, as the core is still the same size.

History and Origins of the Ein Shemer Apple Tree

Abba Stein was a breeder and grower of apples in Israel, at the Kibbutz Ein Shemer, in the 1950s. This new country wanted crops to grow in the desert it was turning into fields, and Abba Stein wanted apples that would grow in the warm, Middle Eastern climate. He bred local varieties with ones he brought from Europe, and produced both the Ein Shemer and the Anna apples, which are still the main varieties grown in Israel today.

To create our trees, skilled growers take stem pieces from trees that can be traced back to the original tree, and then graft them onto suitable apple rootstocks. There is always a high demand for these unique varieties that grow in Florida and other southern areas, and supplies are always limited. Order now while we can still fill that order.

Far better, such people argue, to grow something unique, special, and probably unobtainable from commercial growers. With fruit and vegetables this usually means something heirloom, that is, an older variety – oldies but goodies, we might say. There are lots of reasons why a particular apple variety stops being grown, and it rarely has to do with quality – in fact it is often the reverse. Size of the harvest is a big issue for commercial growers, and many great apples are replaced simply because the new one yields more. The ability to travel and store well are other big factors. For a home grower, none of these things really matter, and you can focus on what really does matter – taste and uniqueness.

If growing heirloom varieties appeals to you, for exactly these reasons, then the Stayman Apple is the tree for you. As one special tree, or as part of a collection of heirloom varieties, this apple has a unique spicy flavor, combining sweet with tart, plus a juicy and crunchy texture for great eating. Over a hundred and fifty years old, this apple certainly counts as an heirloom, and it’s a great eating apple too.

Growing Stayman Apple Trees

The Stayman Apple is considered by many to be the best eating apple there is. It has the perfect combination of sweet and tart, and a grown-up crunch. The flavor is often described as spicy or ‘winey’, and it has a delicious after-taste like strawberries. Heirloom apples often don’t look great, and the Stayman Apple won’t win any beauty contests, although it is pretty enough. The fruit is large and round, with greenish-yellow skin that has a heavy red blush over most of it, with many red stripes from top to bottom.

Like other heirloom apples, there are russet spots on the skin, and russet where the stalk is attached. Russet is a thicker area of rough brown on the skin. This apple is therefore best peeled before eating. The flesh is white with a yellow-green tone, and it’s crisp yet tender. This is a juicy apple, with a sweet but tart taste you will love. The spicy notes make for a unique and very enjoyable eating experience. This variety also makes excellent apple sauce, and cider too.

Planting and Initial Care

Grow your Stayman Apple Tree in well-drained soil in full sun. Mulch over the root-zone each spring with rich compost or manure, keeping it from touching the trunk. Keep the area below your tree free of grass and weeds. Only mature trees should have grass growing beneath them. Pruning your tree should begin early, and it should be done in late winter each year. The goal is to keep a sturdy central trunk, with several evenly-spaced branches radiating outwards at a low angle, with a clear center, to allow the sun to penetrate. Cut new shoots back by one-third and keep the tree open and uncrowded. If you have a heavy crop of young apples you may need to thin them, so they are spaced out about 4 inches apart. Do this when they are about the size of a quarter. Thinning will give you large, good-quality apples.

Pollinating Your Tree

The Stayman Apple is not self-fertile, so it needs another tree of a suitable variety to pollinate it. Why not compliment it with a wonderful heirloom cooking apple – Rome Beauty? Dating from 1816, this apple is even older, yet it is considered simply the best cooking apple around. It is self-fertile, so it will pollinate your Stayman Apple, and crop beautifully itself too. That way you have a wonderful eating apple, and a terrific one for cooking too. If instead you want more eating apples, another suitable heirloom variety, from 1826, is Jonathan, also renowned for its flavor. In fact, why not grow all three?

History and Origins of the Stayman Apple Tree

The Stayman Apple originated from a batch of seeds taken from an earlier American variety called Winesap. This was a tart apple, popular for cider making. A certain Dr. J. Stayman, from Leavenworth, Kansas, grew the seeds in 1866, and in 1875 his tree bore its first fruit – sweeter than the parent, but just as well-flavored. It wasn’t noticed much until the 1890s, after which it was widely planted in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia – all states where this apple grows well.

This apple is preserved by grafting, and it cannot be grown from seed. Our trees are skillfully produced from sections of young stems grafted onto special apple roots, to give healthy and sturdy plants. You can see this connecting point as a kink low down in the stem of your tree. Keep that area above the ground when planting – in time it will disappear. Any growth from below that point is not the apple you want, and it should be removed immediately.

Growing and collecting heirloom apples is a popular activity, and no wonder – the benefits are enormous. Stock of special varieties like this one sells quickly. Order now while we still have some Stayman Apple Trees left for you.

The Jonagold Apple was bred for flavor, and it is renowned for just how good it tastes. It is a great cooking apple too, and it has a unique smell when you bake an apple pie – mouth-wateringly good. Imagine the pleasure and joy of picking your first apples, right from your own garden, and then eating them fresh or baking them. You can of course grow it organically without chemicals if you wish, so you know it will be pure, unadulterated goodness for your family. The Jonagold Apple has an added bonus; the white spring blossoms are profuse and much bigger than on other apple trees grown for fruit – so you get a bonus spring-flowering tree along with one of the best eating apples around.

Growing Jonagold Apples

Plant your Jonagold Apple Tree in a sunny place, in well-drained soil. This is a vigorous tree that will grow to a larger size than many other apple trees, so allow enough room for it. When planting make sure you keep the ‘kink’ you will see in the stem above the soil level – plant at the same depth as in the pot. Any stems that may grow from below that ‘kink’ should be removed immediately. Keep the soil beneath your tree free of grass or weeds and mulch the root-zone with rich compost or manure each spring. Keep the mulch from contacting the trunk. Water regularly for the first few years, and water mature trees during dry periods.

This tree grows well across a large area, from zone 5 to zone 8, and it is a good choice for warmer areas as it blooms well even with short winters. Although not specifically resistant to diseases, the exceptional vigor of this tree allows it to avoid diseases and stay healthy. Start pruning in the first year, in late winter, and prune each year to develop a good structure, with a central trunk and open branches radiating at low angles for strength and sun exposure. This variety rarely needs to have its fruit thinned, saving you doing that particular task.

Harvesting and Storing Your Apples

The first apples will be on your tree within 2 to 4 years, and by September of that year you will be harvesting. The apples will store for a few weeks to extend the season into early winter. If you have a large crop, pick part of it in at the end of August, before the apples are fully ripe. Select only perfect fruits and handle them carefully to avoid any damage or bruising. Wrap them individually in newspaper or Kraft paper, and store in a single layer in a very cool, damp place. These apples will store much longer than ones you pick ripe – probably for a good two or even three months.

Pollinating Your Trees

The Jonagold Apple Tree is not self-fertile. A single tree will bear very few, if any, apples. It belongs to a small, unusual group of apples called tetraploids. They have three copies of each chromosome, instead of the usual pairs. This means that they need another apple tree variety to pollinate them, but they in turn cannot pollinate that apple. If the pollinator you choose is self-fertile, you will still get a good crop on it. If it is not, you will need a third variety to then pollinate that tree. The Gala Apple is a good choice to grow with Jonagold, as it will pollinate Jonagold, and since it is also self-pollinating you will have apples on your Gala tree as well. Alternatively, grow a white or pink flowering crab apple tree, as these trees are good all-round apple pollinators.

History and Origins of the Jonagold Apple Tree

The Jonagold Apple was created at the New York State Agricultural Station, part of Cornell University, in Geneva, New York. In the 1940s Dr. A.J. Heinicke had a large apple-breeding program running, and he crossed Golden Delicious, known for its tartness, with Jonathan, a very sweet and delicious apple. After 20 years of selection from thousands of seedlings, the Station released Jonagold in 1968. It has grown in popularity ever since.

Our trees are produced from stems 100% genetically identical to that original tree, by attaching stem pieces to the roots of special apple varieties, developed to act as roots and control the vigor and health of your tree. Growing your own fruit is spreading fast, and our stock of this top-quality apple will not last long. Order now while you can still enjoy the best.

The flavor is very like the unique taste of the McIntosh Apple, which is one of the parents of the Empire Apple. If you like that taste, which many people describe as like melon or pineapple, but live too far south to grow McIntosh (which does well only in cold states), then grow the Empire Apple instead.

Growing Empire Apple Trees

Children really love the Empire Apple. Its beautiful deep, maroon-red color on a light green background, simply says ‘eat me’, and it is the perfect lunch-box apple. Why? Because it has the pretty unique property of not quickly browning from minor scratches or bruises, so when it inevitably gets thrown around a bit in taking it to school, the flesh will still be fresh and white, not brown and ‘icky’ to fussy children.

Imagine the fun of stepping outside in the first months of the new school year – September and October – and picking an apple straight from the tree to take to school. That is when your Empire Apple Tree will be heavy with big, juicy apples. The flesh is crisp, but soft enough for young teeth to bite into easily.

Uses in the Kitchen

The Empire Apple also cooks beautifully – better than McIntosh – and it holds it shape well. Cooking brings out the unique flavor, and it certainly adds a special something to all your baking or salads. As well, this apple can be stored right into January, and it only improves in flavor as it stores. You can store your apples in the refrigerator, or in a cool cellar or garage. The ideal environment is just above freezing, and humid.

Harvesting and Storing Your Apples

Harvest your apples carefully, as if you were handling eggs, and pick out the perfect ones for long-term storage. Use up the slightly damaged ones first. Wrap each apple individually in newspaper or Kraft paper, and lay out in a single layer on a shelf or rack. Alternatively, for baking you can prepare them to the slice stage, and then freeze the slices on trays and store in freezer bags. Whatever method you use, you will be enjoying your own apples for months.

Planting and Initial Care

The Empire Apple grows best in cold to warm states, from zone 4 to zone 7. For hot states choose something different, like the Anna Apple or the Ein Shemer Apple. Plant in full sun, in well-drained soil, and mulch each spring with rich compost or manure. Cover the root zone but keep the compost off the trunk. Water young trees regularly, but once established trees will only need watering during dry spells. This apple is resistant to the killer apple disease of Fireblight and to Cedar Apple Rust, but it can be affected by the minor disease of Apple Scab. This only causes some leaf drop, and some superficial rough patches on the outside of the apples, but it doesn’t affect the quality at all.

When planting your apple, be careful to plant it with the ‘kink’ you can see in the stem above the ground. This is the graft union – the point where the piece of Empire Apple was attached to a special root system. Anything that grows from below this point should be removed cleanly. Start pruning from an early age, creating a trunk up to 5 feet tall, with radiating branches at low angles. Keep the center open to let the sun in to ripen the fruit, and trim long branches from the previous year back by one-third to one-half.

You may need to thin the fruit in summer, to make sure you get full-sized apples. When the fruits are about the size of a quarter remove all but one fruit from each cluster and remove extra apples until there is about 4 inches between each one. You will have fewer apples, but they will be bigger and better, not small and mostly core.

History and Origins of the Empire Apple Tree

The Empire Apple is the result of a careful breeding program carried out at Cornell University, in Geneva, New York. Starting in 1945, Dr. A. J. Heinicke and Lester Anderson collected bushels of apples from Anderson’s orchards, where only McIntosh and Red Delicious apple trees were growing. They extracted the seed from the apples, sprouted them, and in 1947 planted 2,000 seedlings at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, which is part of the University.

In 1954 a smaller group of the best was selected, and then, after 12 more years of testing, Roger Way selected ‘N.Y. 45500-5’ as the very best. It was released under license with the name ‘Empire’. Since then it has been grown extensively commercially, chiefly in New York State, and has been hugely popular with apple eaters since the day it was released. It is self-fertile, but it will carry a heavier crop if grown near another variety. The Red Delicious Apple is an excellent mutual pollinator, and both will crop more heavily when grown together.

To produce our Empire Apples, stem pieces of the tree are attached to specially-produced root systems of trees developed to give the best growth, and to control the size to cause earlier fruiting. This top-quality apple is the perfect choice if you want a single tree to give you eating and cooking apples for 5 months of the year, picked from a tough, easy to grow tree. This tree is always very popular, so order now while our stocks hold out.

The beautiful Rome Beauty Apple looks exactly like an apple should – big, round, and bright red, with pure-white flesh. It is good to eat fresh, with a balance of sweet and tart, but it is in baking that it takes the prizes. With cooking the flavor develops into something very special, and it keeps it shape when cooked, instead of collapsing into a wet mess. For pies it can’t be beaten. Something as simple as sautéed apple slices (with ice cream of course) become a gourmet treat. Muffins, crisps and crumbles, turnovers of whatever you and your family love, a steady supply of this apple will make them all possible. The Rome Apple has its first ripe fruit late in the season, in October, just in time for baking winter treats, and it stores for months, so the supply will not run out.

Growing Rome Beauty Apple Trees

The Rome Beauty Apple is an easy apple tree to grow. Although all apple trees can sometimes have problems, this tree is much hardier and more pest and disease resistant than many others. Plant it in a sunny place, and within 2 or 3 years you will be picking your first apples – the pleasure of eating your own fruit is something everyone should be able to enjoy. There are lots of traditional and organic methods to keep your trees healthy and your apples unblemished, and you can choose how you grow them, so you will know just exactly what has, or has not, been done to them.

The Rome Beauty Apple tree will grow in most well-drained garden soils. This tree will grow almost anywhere, all the way from zone 4 to zone 8, which covers most of the country. It performs well in cool states, but also in hot ones, so everyone can have a tree of this perfect cooking apple in their garden.

Maximizing Your Crop

This variety is also self-fertile, so you can grow just this one tree, and harvest a big crop. You can increase the size of your crop by planting a second tree of a different variety, such as a Delicious apple, or a Honeycrisp apple. A good tip for getting a big crop from any apple tree is to plant a white-flowering crab apple in your yard. It will pollinate just about any variety of apple tree you choose to grow.

Planting and Initial Care

When planting your apple, be careful to plant it with the ‘kink’ you can see in the stem above the ground. This is the graft union – the point where the piece of Rome Beauty Apple was attached to a special root system. Anything that grows from below this point should be removed cleanly. Mulch the ground around your tree with a circle of rich compost or manure, each spring, keeping it clear of the trunk. Do not allow grass or weeds to grow under the tree until it is mature and very well established.

Begin pruning and training your tree from the beginning. Develop your tree with a single central trunk several feet tall, and side branches radiating out around it at a wide angle, not upright, and not hanging down. Keep the center area free to let the sun in to ripen the fruit – it should look like a fat doughnut.

Storing Your Apples

To store your Rome Beauty Apples to use over winter, begin by picking them carefully, like they were eggs. Avoid bruising or damaging them, and sort out the perfect ones for long-term storage, using any damaged ones first. Wrap each apple individually in a piece of newspaper or Kraft paper. Place side-by-side in a single layer if possible, in boxes or on an apple rack. For small quantities a refrigerator is perfect, but for larger quantities, find a dark place that is high humidity and just above freezing. A basement or garage are often ideal places. The Rome Beauty Apple will store for months in these conditions. If you don’t have suitable storage space, you can also prepare the apples as slices, then freeze them on a tray and transfer them to freezer bags. They will last for months and months in the freezer.

History and Origins of the Rome Beauty Apple Tree

Back in 1816, the Ohio River valley was a thriving pioneer area. Joel Gilette lived in Rome Township, Proctorville. One day he bought 100 apple trees in the nearby town of Marietta, but among them he found a mismatched tree, which is declared to be a “worthless seedling”. He gave it to his son, Alanson, who planted it along a nearby riverbank. Some years later he went back to check on it, and discovered it heavy with big, bright red apples. He took some branch pieces home and grew some trees from them.

At first the tree was called ‘Gillette’s Seedling’, but later it was renamed ‘Rome Beauty’ to honor the town. Outside the town today there is a sign saying Proctorville, Home of the Rome Beauty Apple. Today the apple is more correctly simply called ‘Rome’, but other names, like ‘Red Rome’ are sometimes seen – all for the same apple.

Our Rome Beauty apple trees are produced by skilled nursery workers, who graft healthy stem pieces onto special roots to control the final size of your tree, and to keep it vigorous. This heirloom apple tree is becoming harder to find, and supplies are limited, while demand is high. Order now while our stocks last.

Many apples quickly turn brown when cut, making them unattractive on the table, or in a salad. The Cameo Apple has flesh that stays white and clean for a long time after cutting – another plus for this terrific apple. The fruit ripens later in the apple season, that is, in September or October in most areas, so it is perfect for savory fall salads, like the classic Waldorf salad. As well, tests have found unusually high levels of healthy anti-oxidants in this variety – an added bonus for you and your family.

Growing Cameo Apple Trees

Apple trees are among the easiest of fruit trees to grow in your garden, and they can be grown across a wide area of the country. The Cameo Apple Tree thrives all the way from zone 4 to zone 8, and grows well in most soils that are well-drained. With pruning it will not become too large, and it can even be trained against a wall in the style called ‘espalier’, taking almost no space, and making a beautiful addition to your garden. If you have a larger property, you can plant a small orchard of fruit trees, with grass and wild flowers growing beneath them. The grass only needs cutting once or twice a year.

Planting and Initial Care

When planting your Cameo Apple Tree, choose a sunny spot in your garden. It will tolerate a little shade, especially in warmer zones, but it will crop best, and ripen the sweetest apples, in full sun. It grows best in rich, well-drained soil. If you have poor drainage, build a raised mound about 3 feet across, and plant your tree shallowly on it. In very sandy soil be sure to add plenty of organic material to the soil when planting, and to mulch every spring over the root area – to conserve water and provide nutrients.

Allow sufficient space for your tree to develop properly, depending on the style of growth you are pruning it to. To grow on a sunny wall, plant up against the base of the wall and tie the branches back of a series of wires stretched across the area. Trees on walls will flower and ripen fruit earlier than trees in the open, so this method is especially useful in cooler parts of the country.

Maximizing Your Crop

Like almost all apple trees, your Cameo Apple Tree will produce the best crop if another suitable variety is growing nearby. We recommend the Gala Apple Tree as an ideal pollinator, and that tree is also a fantastic mid-season eating and cooking apple, as well as the best juicing apple around. They are a perfect compliment to each other, and both will carry a bumper harvest. If you have a flowering crab apple tree, these are also good pollinators for almost all types of apples, including the Cameo Apple.

Care and Maintenance

Your tree should begin producing fruit in two or three years, and you should begin pruning after planting, as pruning brings the tree into fruit-bearing condition earlier. Choose a style for your tree. Common forms are open vase-shapes, with radiating branches, or a single central stem, with radiating side-branches. Pruning your trees is fun and easy, while leaving your tree to grow wild is not recommended.

If you have a heavy crop of young apples, these should be thinned when they are about the size of a quarter. Leave one apple per cluster, and space them about 6 inches apart on the branches. If you do not thin you will get a heavy crop of very small apples that are mostly core – thinning gives you big, juicy apples, and is very worthwhile. You can expect a heavy crop from your tree in a few years, but nothing will go to waste. This apple will store for several months, well into winter, if you store them in a cool place.

History and Origins of the Cameo Apple Tree

The Cameo Apple Tree is a relatively new variety that was discovered growing in an orchard in the community of Dryden, Washington State, in 1987. Like many great apples, the parentage of this tree is unknown, but it is likely to be a chance seedling of the Red Delicious and Golden Delicious varieties, since they were both growing in the orchard. Once its superb qualities were noticed, the tree was preserved. Our trees are directly derived from that original, by grafting stem pieces onto sturdy root systems bred for vigor and adaptability. This newer variety of eating apple has received a lot of attention – and no wonder, considering how versatile and tasty it is. Our stock will not last long, so order now to avoid disappointment.

You will harvest delicious tree-ripened fruit for weeks on end, enough to feed your family and your friends, and those you don’t eat fresh can be turned into delicious baked goods and preserves to eat through the rest of the year. As well, Apple Trees are beautiful in bloom, smothered in clusters of white and pink flowers, and the thrill of watching them develop from tiny, green balls to big, red juicy apples is something everyone should experience. Children love to eat produce from home, and the Pink Lady apple will be an instant favorite.

Growing Pink Lady Apple Trees

The Pink Lady Apple is a small tree that grows between 12 and 15 feet tall, and the same wide. It can be grown as a free-standing tree, or trained on a wall or trellis to take up almost no space. So even if you have a very small garden, your own apples can be a reality. In spring the bare branches will be covered in dense clusters of small white and pink flowers. As the petals drop and the new leaves emerge, you will see tiny green apples developing. Over summer these swell and swell, until they begin to turn yellow in fall.

By late fall the apples will be pink, with deeper red areas on the sunny side of the fruit, and ready to pick. This is one of the latest apples to be ready for harvesting, and it stores for an incredible 3 months, so even the biggest crop is easy to use with no waste. The flesh is white, crisp and crunchy, but not hard. The taste is triple-A, starting with a tart acidity, and quickly becoming sweet and aromatic. This is definitely one of the best eating apples available, yet it also holds it shape in pies, and it does not turn brown quickly, so slices remain appetizing on the table or in salads.

Planting Location

When deciding where to plant your tree, choose a sunny location and make sure it has well-drained soil. For the first year make sure you water it regularly, and then during dry periods. You will get the best crops if you follow a suitable fertilizer program and keep the area beneath the tree free of grass or weeds until it is mature. To get a good crop you need to have other Apple Trees in the neighborhood, or plant another variety. We recommend our Red Delicious Apple Tree as an ideal companion, and both trees will produce bumper harvests if they are planted near each other.

Care and Maintenance

Prune your tree in late winter while it is dormant. Remove over-crowded branches and keep one central branch growing up. Cut the ends of the remaining branches just above an outward-facing bud to encourage the side branches to grow out at a good angle. Keep the tree open and shaped like a pyramid and don’t just clip it into a dense shape. If you have a heavy crop of apples, remove some so that the remaining fruits grow to a good size.

Do this when the fruit is about the size of a quarter, and remove all but one apple from each cluster. Allow 6 to 8 inches between each fruit along the branches. This may seem like you are reducing your harvest, but you will get the same amount, just as large, juicy apples, instead of small ones that are all core.

History and Origins of the Pink Lady Apple Tree

The Pink Lady Apple was developed in Western Australia by John Cripps, a breeder in a government fruit-breeding program. It is a cross between the famous Golden Delicious variety and another variety of apple called Lady Williams. Hybrid trees like the Pink Lady must be reproduced carefully, using buds taken from the correct tree and attaching it to roots of special trees developed to control the size and vigor of the tree. They can never be grown from seed, and cheap seedling apples trees can be guaranteed to have no value at all, with inferior fruit produced only after a decade or more of growth. Your Pink Lady Apple will begin to bear fruit within 2 years of planting, and it will have bumper crops within 5 years.

Now there is! Plant breeders have given us Urban Apples, specially bred trees that fit perfectly into small gardens and can even be grown in containers if you have no garden at all. People have different tastes in apples, and among these amazing new trees is just the one for those who love a crunchy but sweet apple, with that shiny ‘Sleeping Beauty’ rich red skin. This is the Tasty Red Urban Apple Tree, a new variety of apple that is taking the gardening world by storm. It grows into a narrow, upright tree 8-10 feet tall and just 2 feet wide, so it can fit into any small garden or be grown in a large pot. As long as the position is sunny, every garden must have a space just 2 feet wide this tree would fit into.

Growing Tasty Red Urban Apple Trees

Your Tasty Red Urban Apple Tree will begin to produce fruit the first or second year after planting – no long delays before seeing a crop as happens with full-sized trees. It will gradually grow into a beautiful column of leaves and fruit, with a great spring display of pink and white flowers on the bare branches. As the flowers fall you will see tiny apples developing, and over the summer they will grow and grow until by mid-September they will be full-sized apples, bright red in color, ready for you to harvest. ‘Tasty Red’ is the sweetest of the Urban Apples and is ideal for eating straight from the tree, although it can also be stored for several weeks in a cool place.

Planting Location

Plant your new tree in a sunny spot, in almost any kind of soil. This tree is hardy from zone 4 to zone 8, so it can be grown in all but the very coldest and hottest parts of the country. Just make sure you are not planting in a spot with poor drainage, as apple trees do not like to be standing in water. Avoid a low-lying hollow too, especially if you live in colder areas, since late frost can collect there and damage the blossoms.

Maximizing Your Harvest

For the maximum harvest you need to have an apple tree of a different variety within 50 feet of your tree, either a Fruiting Apple Tree or a Crab Apple. If you don’t, then no worries, simply add either a Blushing Delight Urban Apple Tree or a Tangy Green Urban Apple Tree to your order and plant them near each other – they take up so little room there will be no space issues, no matter how small your garden. These other varieties can be eaten fresh and they are also ideal for all your baking, so with two different trees you can have perfect eating apples and perfect cooking apples straight from your garden.

Planting a Mini-Orchard

For a great garden feature, plant a mini-orchard, using two or three kinds of Urban Apples, planted 3 feet apart, along a fence, a wall, or as a row along a path or driveway. This makes a great natural hedge that is not only beautiful but useful too – the ideal garden feature.

Growing in a Pot or Container

To grow the Tasty Red Urban Apple Tree in a container, choose one with good drainage holes that is 18-24 inches across. Choose a potting soil recommended for outdoor planters, and keep your potted tree in a sunny spot and outdoors all year round. Water well each time, so that water flows from the drainage holes and do not stand your pot in a saucer. Let the top inch or so of the soil become dry before watering again. Use a fertilizer for fruit trees regularly, according to the recommendations on the package.

History and Origins of the Tasty Red Urban Apple

The Tasty Red Urban Apple Tree is the result of intensive breeding and research by Dr. Jaroslav Tupy, head of the Institute of Experimental Botany, Prague, in the Czech Republic. He worked for years to produce a really new kind of apple that makes it possible for anyone to successfully grow apples, even in the smallest gardens. These are very special trees, so cheaper varieties will not resemble the Tasty Red Urban Apple Tree at all, and will only be a huge disappointment to you, growing large and unwieldy, with inferior fruit.