Christmas Pearmain Apple Trees

Christmas Pearmain Apple Trees

Christmas Pearmain apple trees produce a mid- late season eating apple.

Browse our full range of apple trees for sale or see the full variety of fruit trees available online.

Characteristics of Christmas Pearmain Trees:

• Use: Eating. Sweet, juicy and quite crisp with a full flavour.
• Spur Bearer: suitable for cordons & espaliers, trained on wires.
• Tree's growth habit: Average vigour. Upright form.
• Harvest: Early October
• Store & ripen in a cool, dry place: January

General description of Christmas Pearmain:

These are reliable trees with decent sized eating apples. The fruit have an old fashioned look, with slightly rough green skin that has an orange to dark red flush. Their flavour is best when they have had about a month to ripen off the tree. It is a straightforward, sweet eating apple with a fairly crisp, firm texture.
The trees are upright, tidy and cold-hardy tree. It is a heavy cropper when mature.

Rootstocks:
All of our Christmas Pearmain trees are grown on MM106 rootstocks.

Pollination Partners for Christmas Pearmain:
Your trees are reliably self fertile, but will make the best crops when pollinated.
Christmas Pearmain is in pollination Group B.
This means that they will cross-pollinate with other apple trees in pollination Groups A, B and C.
This tree's flowers have good frost resistance.

See our Guide to Apple Tree Pollination for a full list of partners & more tips about pollination.

Christmas Pearmain Disease notes:
Disease resistance: Scab.

History & Parentage:
This Victorian era tree was bred by a Mr Manser of Kent and was first produced commercially in the 1890's by a nursery near Maidstone called G. Bunyard & Co.

How Apple Trees are Measured & Delivered:
Our fruit trees are delivered in up to 3 shapes and you can also buy selected apple trees as ready made cordons.
Maiden: This unbranched tree is the smallest starting size. You can train maidens into espaliers and cordons.
Cordon: Christmas Pearmain trees are spur-bearers, so they can be made into cordons and espaliers.
Bush: This is a style of freestanding tree with a short trunk of about 60cm. It will grow to about 3 metres tall.
Half-Standard: This is a freestanding style that will grow into a full sized, "normal" apple tree, about 4 metres tall.

Notes on planting Christmas Pearmain trees:
All fruit trees like a rich soil with decent drainage, protection from the wind and plenty of sun. Apple trees like clay soil, as long as it is not prone to bad waterlogging.
This tree is recommended for the North & Scotland because of its frost resistant flowers.

Prepare your site before planting:
Improving the soil in advance of planting your apple trees will help them establish quickly and be productive for years to come. After you have destroyed all the weeds and grass, you can dig the soil over. Remove any stones and rubbish and mix in well rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades.
You can do this on planting day, but when you do it weeks or months in advance, you will give the soil time to settle again.

Spacing Christmas Pearmain apple trees:
Freestanding bushes: 12-18 feet (4-6 metres) between trees and rows.
Freestanding half-standards: 18-30 feet (6-10 metres) between trees and rows.
In general, allow 1 more metre between rows than there is between each tree in the row.
Wire-trained cordons can be planted in rows 60-100cms apart.
Espaliers need to be spaced at 10-18 feet (3-6 metres) apart.

Watch our video on how to plant a fruit tree for full instructions on planting a bush or half-standard sized tree.
If you are growing a maiden sized apple tree into a freestanding tree, a bamboo cane is enough support.
If you are growing a cordon or espalier, you will need to install training wires to support them.
Remember to water establishing apple trees during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Apple Tree Planting Accessories:
For bush and half standard apple trees, our tree planting pack includes a wooden stake & rubber tie to support the tree and a biodegradable mulch mat with pegs, which protects the soil at the base of your tree from drying out and stops weeds from sprouting.
We recommend using mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of all new trees, especially if your soil is poorly fertile.

After you plant an apple tree, the most important thing to do is water it in dry weather and weed around it. Both of these will be necessary for at least a year after planting. We recommend using a mulch mat as well.

The best tip for helping your tree to establish and quickly become mature and productive is to remove all the fruit that it produces in the first year after planting, as soon as the flowers fade. This will give the tree a chance to develop its roots, which are the foundation of the tree's strength, and sturdy branches that can bear the weight of a heavy crop without snapping.

All fruit trees will need formative pruning during their first years. Although this is not complicated, it is important to research and understand the process so that you can apply it to your particular tree and situation.

Harvesting Christmas Pearmain apples:
OR Your trees should crop in Early October. Christmas Pearmain apples taste best after they have ripened off the branch for a few weeks and will store in a cool, frost-free place for about 4 months.
Read more about picking and storing apples here.

Hygiene & Diseases:
Dead, damaged or diseased wood can be pruned off as soon as it appears.
Disinfect your pruning tools between every cut if there is any sign of disease.
Burn or dispose of any diseased material, do not compost it.