[lazza]

I bought two apple trees from our local Lidl a couple of weeks back, and am not sure about the best way forward.

The varieties are Jonagold and Belle de Boskoop.

As this is my first time growing apples, I have done a bit of reading, and seem to have more questions now than before I started!

Pollination: I understand that Jonagold is triploid, so cannot pollinate other apples. However, I assume the other apple can pollinate the Jonagold, is that right? And one of my neighbours has several apple varieties growing in his garden, so they should be able to pollinate my Belle de Boskoop... true?

Growing: both trees will apparently grow to 10-12' high. But can I train the trees myself? I have them planted against a south-west facing fence, which I would ideally like to grow them up and along (espalier?). Is this possible with a random apple bought cheap from Lidl?!? Or do I need a special variety or graft...or something?? If so, is there any advice on doing this from scratch. All I seemed to find was advice on continuing an already established shape.

Fruiting: As both plants are basically just sticks 3-4' high at the moment, should I expect any fruit this year, or should I leave any fruit to allow the trees to establish? Also, I only planted them a week ago, and I am wondering if this will do them any harm as I seem to find most advice is to plant in the winter.

Thanks!

[mumofstig]

as long as you water them well this year, they should be fine with the later planting. I wouldn't let them fruit this year either, let them concentrate on strong roots. It sounds as if there are enough apples around for pollination of both varieties 

You can espalier the apples, but bear in mind if you go down this pruning/training route it will be  longer before you get any fruit as the first years will be spent establishing a framework of branches. RHS says 3 years ...............

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?PID=319