Tree fruit
Columnar apple
Malus domestica
Timings for your region
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Never sown — bare-root plants go straight into the bed.
The harvest times are for an established plant — the first crop comes after 1–2 years.
Plantingmid October – late November
Harvestlate August – early October
Practical tip
Two different things are sold as a columnar apple. The real ones carry the Wijcik gene — ‘Bolero’, ‘Polka’, ‘Waltz’, ‘Rondo’ — and genuinely grow as a single stem to about 2.5 metres. The others are ordinary varieties cut to a column in the nursery; they turn back into a bush the moment nobody prunes them.
Origin & history
The columnar habit goes back to a single accident: in 1961 the fruit grower Anthony Wijcik found a branch on a “McIntosh” tree in Kelowna, British Columbia, that grew straight upwards without a single side shoot. That bud mutation became “McIntosh Wijcik”, and in the 1970s and 1980s the East Malling research station in England bred the trait into a series of new varieties that reached the trade at the end of the 1980s as the Ballerina range. Everything that genuinely grows as a column today descends from that one branch.
Varieties
Height is decided by the rootstock, not the variety — and the rootstock is rarely printed large on the label. On M27 the tree stops at 1.5 to 2 metres but needs a permanent stake and must never dry out; M9 is the usual compromise for a tub and runs to 2.5 to 3 metres. MM106 or a seedling rootstock is too vigorous for a 70-litre pot. Ask if it is not stated, and pick a selection sold as scab-tolerant. Plan the second apple variety in from the start: it has to flower at the same time, but it may stand in the neighbouring garden — up to about fifty metres still counts.
Care
Plant the bare-root tree so the graft union stays a hand’s width above the soil; bury it and the variety roots over the top, and the dwarfing rootstock stops doing its job. A tub drinks three to five litres a day in July. Thin in June to one fruit per cluster, or the apples stay small and the tree drops into cropping every second year. Shorten the side shoots to three to five buds in August. Before winter, wrap the pot in hessian and stand it on a board against the house wall — and water it on frost-free days, because most tub apples die of drought in February rather than of cold.
What can go wrong
Scab is the main event: olive-brown blotches on the leaves, corky cracks on the skin, and in a wet spring every single year. The fungus overwinters in the fallen leaves, so rake them up completely in autumn and take them out of the garden; an airy spot with sun on every side and a tolerant selection do the rest. Codling moth leaves a hole packed with crumbly frass — collect windfalls weekly and put a band of corrugated cardboard round the stem in June, which the larvae pupate in, then take it away with its contents in autumn. Shoot tips that are floury white and curled get cut back into sound wood in spring.
Harvest, storage & kitchen
An apple is ready when it parts from the spur as you lift and twist it gently; if you have to pull, wait another week. The pips are brown by then. Reckon on three to eight kilos per column, spread over two or three pickings between late August and early October. On flavour the true columnar varieties are middling — moderately sweet, often a little coarse in the flesh; they are better in a cake, as purée or in juice than on a plate. They barely keep: two to six weeks in a cool cellar, and every bruised fruit gets sorted out first.
All timings are guide values for the given climate, not a guarantee. Weather, aspect and variety all have a say.