Well I hope not.
This is a Ballerina apple tree, the variety is Bolero. It is a columnar apple tree, developed in the UK and introduced in 1976. I purchased this many years ago along with two other Ballerina varieties. One of the trees was removed after a few years; it was planted in the wrong place and didn't perform well either; you know, no fruit. So now I just have Bolero, and Polka which seems to be biennial fruiting. Bolero produces tons of fruit, well quite a lot anyway. The apples are quite large, but don't taste as nice as Polka.
When I bought these trees, columnar apples were a relatively new trend. They were advertised as being suitable for small gardens, not taking up much space. Unfortunately, the dwarf root stocks then, were not as good as they are today, and the trees just leapt for the sky. I have had them pruned twice already, and will be having them pruned again next winter.
I was quite late in growing apple trees. My grandfather grew them, he had Cox's Orange Pippin among others. I was put off growing apples by the TV programmes of the day who all advocated spraying and spraying and ........well you get the idea. I asked my grandfather if he sprayed his apples, and he said he did. Although he later admitted that he hadn't done it for years.
Then, many years later, Geoff Hamilton took over presenting Gardener's World on TV, and he recommended growing apple trees organically. In fact, I still remember the episode where he demonstrated microwaving a shop-bought apple and an organically grown apple. Put me off shop-bought apples for life. Strangely enough, up until then, I had never really thought about farmers and growers spraying their produce with chemicals.
And so I began growing apples organically. Oh, and the codling moths ? Fortunately, I haven't had a problem with them. I used to put codling moth traps up, when I first started growing apples, but I haven't bothered in recent years. Needless to say, should I ever find a maggot in one of my apples, the traps will return.
And finally, what about the weather then ? We've had 22mm of rain here in the last 24 hours. Don't ask me what that is in real money, but it's a lot anyway. It's a good job we're in a drought, imagine what it would be like if we were in a rainy season. Or are we now ?
Ja nie pryskam drzew, wolę się podzielić z robakami jabłkami, niż używać chemii. Bardzo ładnie Ci kwitnie jabłoń. Pozdrawiam.
ReplyDeleteI Do not spray the trees, I prefer to share apples with worms than to chemistry. Very nice you apple blossoms. Yours.
Hi Giga, glad to hear you don't spray either. Not only do the chemicals get into the fruit, but the pollinators are damaged also.
DeleteLovely post.....I enjoyed reading your journey with the apples and that it lead you not to spray. I grow apples, plums, medlar, pears etc and have never used sparys or traps for the ten years I have gardened here. My theory is that if your garden is balanced nature takes care of itself :}
ReplyDeleteLike the previous comment I prefer the worms to chemicals.
Cheryl, yes I agree. Never had any of the problems that the sprays were supposed to be for.
DeleteWHat on earth happened to the Micro-waved apples to put you off shop ones, that sounds interesting. My passion for gardening came from Mr Titchmarsh on Gardeners World, actually I think it was just a passion for the man himself...lol. Beautiful to see all that pink blossom. Our apple tree usually blossoms the week the strong winds seem to hit our garden. I may go out ahead this year & glue it on! xx
ReplyDeleteThe organic apple was just a cooked apple, but the shop-bought one was all crozzled up, and you could see all the residue of the sprays on the apple skin.
DeleteI was wondering the same as Jane ...
ReplyDeleteI loved Geoff Hamilton. Did you see the series : An Ornamental Kitchen Garden ?
Yes it was one of my favourite garden programmes. I recently bought it on DVD from the BBC Shop, three of his series on one DVD. Bargain. I tried to grow a lollipop apple tree as he demonstrated, but I'll leave that for another post.
DeletePretty blooms on the apple tree. I have a little self fertilising apple tree that I grow in a pot organically. I don't get many apples but I'm kinda proud of it anyway. Last year 14 apples just.
ReplyDeleteMy trees are supposed to be self-fertile but I grow a few different varieties to help with the pollination. Belt and braces approach as we say up here.
DeletePretty apple blossoms, growing apples is a definite advantage to your climate. I rarely buy apples in the supermarket since the taste doesn't compare to real apples.
ReplyDeleteYou can probably taste the chemicals on the supermarket ones.
DeleteI nominated your blog for The Versatile Blogger award. Here's some information: http://versatilebloggeraward.wordpress.com/vba-rules/
ReplyDeleteThank you most kindly. Very much appreciated.
DeleteLovely photo, I love apple blossom. My ancient apple tree never gets treated with anything and almost always gives us a good crop of very tasty apples. I'm glad the question of the microwave has been answered, I too was intrigued. 'Crozzled' what a great word!!! I've never heard it before so had to look it up and found, as I suspected, that it is specific to your area. It reminded me that I was taken to task by my old English teacher for writing in an essay that I had scrazed my leg (meaning grazed), she insisted it didn't exist but all my family used it and years later I found it was ancient dialect, I would love to have gone back and told her :-)
ReplyDeleteI like to throw the odd Yorkshire phrase into the mix now and again.
DeleteApple trees don't grow well here, and I've heard they are hard to grow organically. Thanks for proving that wrong!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear you can't grow apples well in your climate, but your roses are amazing.
DeleteI have thought of adding a couple of apple trees, but I would need to do some research to see which varieties would be best. You have chosen well...and those blooms are lovely.
ReplyDeleteThis website might help you decide;
Deletewww.orangepippin.com/
My son once bit into an apple and noticed the seeds had started to germinate. We stuck them in a pot but I didn't expect much. They grew into apple trees! Unfortunately, they developed a disease and the next owners of the house cut them down. Your trees are beautiful!!
ReplyDeleteApple trees from seed rarely produce good plants but it's interesting to experiment anyway.
DeleteWhat I like about apple trees is their rather rustic appearance with their dainty flowers. We had an apple tree in the yard where I grew up. I climbed that tree and picked apple blossoms for my mom from that tree and cleaned up the fallen apples so my dad could mow.
ReplyDeleteHa, ha, good job there was a lot of blossom or you wouldn't have had any apples.
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