Anybody had columnar apples for quite a few years ? Or have some with age ? What's your impression of them now ? Satisfied ? How big are these getting - yours or any that you have seen ?
I've seen some good-looking trees here but have not grown them. A local vendor says a customer feeds the fruits to her horses, so at least one cultivar sold here apparently does not mature pleasingly. They probably all vary in regional suitability same as with other apple cultivars, perhaps the only consistently similar trait among them the manner of growth.
We have older (8-10 years) trees of Golden Sentinel and Scarlet Sentinel at the farm where I work. The trees require little pruning, and are both about 3' wide and 8' tall. They bear well, and the fruit is good but not great (I'm a big fan of intensely flavored apples). They seem to be pretty disease resistant as well. If I had limited space, they would be one good choice, but personally would prefer to plant more intensely flavored varieties on a rootstock like M-27. Having said that, the columnar varieties still produce apples far superior to supermarket fruit.
Hi, Last year I purchased a columner and Braeburn Apple tree, put both in pots and waited to see what would happen. The Columnar requires a polinating tree I was told it could be anything so chose the Breaburn. Variables: low light and lots of finch type birds, NW United States. The columner bloomed, birds seemed to like sitting on the very top and it seemed to kill the greens there - no flowers. I found they knocked off a lot of flowers. I ended up with one apple that stayed small and green, probably due to light. At the end of the season I noticed that the top split and I now have two branches from the main pole, growth was 4 inches. I have 2 branches that have grown from the sides and are about 1 1/2 - 2 inches long. I'd say my "stick" is a slow grower. Also, It seems to be disease resistant. My breaburn got almost every bug out there and I didn't have that problem with the stick. Hope it helps, Erica
