Beauty of Bath Apple Trees

Beauty of Bath Apple Early Eating Trees

Beauty of Bath apple trees produce very early season eating apples: medium-sized, red speckled, with a delicious sharp, aromatic flavour. The flesh is quite soft and white, although it can very often have red flecks or speckles. Like most early croppers, these apples don't store well and are best eaten straight off the tree. It is not always a regular cropper: poorly cropping trees can often be helped with potassium rich fertiliser.

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

Characteristics:

• Use: Eating. Dry, soft texture. Early fruit are sharper tasting than the last ones to ripen. Excellent flavour.
• Spur Bearer: suitable for cordons & training on wires.
• Tree's growth habit: Strong vigour. Spreading form.
• Harvest: End of July (if the summer is sunny) to Early August.
• Store in a cool, dry place: Eat within 2 weeks.

Rootstocks:
All of our Beauty of Bath trees are grown on MM106 rootstocks, except for the cordons, which are grown on M9 rootstocks.

Pollination Partners for Beauty of Bath:
Your trees are self sterile and their flowers must be pollinated to make fruit.
Beauty of Bath is in pollination Group C.
This means that they will cross-pollinate with other apple trees in pollination Groups B, C and D.

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

Beauty of Bath Disease notes:
Disease resistance: Scab (excellent).

History & Parentage:
This Somerset tree is from Bailbrook, just north of Bath, and was raised by Mr Cooling in the 1860's. It used to be a common commercial variety in Britain, but it has lost out to other varieties that store for longer.

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: Beauty of Bath 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 Beauty of Bath 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 potentially suitable for organic growing in the more humid West and South of Britain, where scab and canker are more common.

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 (use Neudorff WeedFree Plus weed-killer for tough weeds), 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 Beauty of Bath 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.