Surprize™ Gold Apple Trees

Surprize™ Apple Trees: Eating

A conversation piece with orange skin and peachy-pink flesh that has a crisp bite and respectable tangy sweet flavour. It juices well.
Harvest in September, it stores well past Christmas in ideal conditions.
The tree is adapted to small gardens, with average vigour and a tidy, quite upright habit. Spur bearer. Not self fertile.

Browse our range of apple trees, or all our fruit trees.
Read our guide to buying apples.

Delivery season: Bareroot plants are delivered in late Autumn to Spring, about November-March inclusive.

Features:

• Exciting appearance.
• Eating. Sweet, crunchy. Juices well
• Spur bearer (good for cordons & espaliers)
• Self sterile, Pollinator, Groups B & C
• Tidy tree, moderate vigor.
• Harvest: September.
• Store & ripen in a cool, dry place: into the new year in ideal conditions.

Growing Surprize Apples

Apples like rich, well drained soil, and will thrive on clay in locations that do not get waterlogged in winter.
A full day of sun and shelter from the wind is ideal.

Rootstocks:
We use MM106 for Surprize, the UK standard for medium-sized trees, ideal for gardeners. It gives a half-standard about 4m tall, and a bush about 3m. 
MM106 maidens are suitable for cordons and espaliers.

Pollination Partners for Surprize

Your trees are self sterile and their flowers must be pollinated to make fruit.
Surprize is in Pollination Groups B & C, which cross-pollinates with other apple trees in Groups A, B, C and D.

Use our Fruit Pollination Checker to quickly find pollination partners, or Apple Tree Pollination Guide to learn more.

Did You Know?

Bred by in Tillingham, Herefordshire, by William Barnet, it shot to fame in 2014 when Tescos promoted it nationwide, and it went on to win a Gold medal at the 2017 National Plant Show for best new variety.

Apple Tree Delivery Shapes:

Most of our fruit trees are delivered in up to 3 shapes (maiden, bush, and half standard), and you can buy selected varieties as ready-made cordons and/or potted mini patio trees: scroll up to see what's in stock. 

Maiden: Unbranched tree, the most basic starting size, which you can train into the other forms (apart from mini patio trees).
Bush: Freestanding tree with a short trunk about 60cm tall. It will grow to about 3m. Ideal for small gardens.
Half-Standard: A freestanding form with a trunk about 120cm tall. It will grow into a full sized, "normal" apple tree, about 4m. Ideal for orchards, easy to mow underneath.
Cordon: Surprize is a spur-bearer, suitable for cordons and espaliers.
Mini Patio Tree: Only sold pot-grown, these use a dwarfing rootstock to drastically reduce the tree's vigour and restrict the mature size. They are suitable for large patio containers, and for small gardens where a normal-sized bush or half-standard form won't fit.

For more details, take a look at our Guide to Fruit Tree Sizing.

Notes on planting apple 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.

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 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.