Bramley's Seedling is the definitive English "cooker" - an apple variety used mainly for cooking purposes (although many customers like to eat them fresh as well).
Bramley is well-known for its rich sharp acidity, and it has one of the highest acid contents of any apple variety. As a result it cooks down to a stiff apple puree, a key requirement for English apple cookery, with an excellent sharp flavour.
The copious juice makes Bramley's Seedling valuable for juicing as well, and the juice is also used in cider production.
Bramley's Seedling trees are well-known for being long-lived. The first tree was grown from a pip in a garden in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1809 - and amazingly this tree still survives.
**All prices include delivery. We offer a discount on orders of multiple bare-root trees for delivery at the same time - this will be shown at the checkout.
Delivery period: Pot-grown trees can be delivered from September onwards. Bare-root trees can be delivered from mid-November onwards. Within those periods you can specify your preferred month of delivery during the checkout process. It is best to order as soon as you can to ensure items are reserved for you.
*Mature heights: Height shown is the approximate height of the tree when mature (after 5-10 years), not the height when supplied. See photos of trees as supplied. Actual mature heights may vary considerably dependent on your local conditions and training and pruning regime.
Stock availability: Items showing as 'sold out' will probably be available again next season. If you would like to reserve in advance use our enquiry form - this does not commit you to anything.
Bramley's Seedling is a triploid variety and cannot pollinate other varieties. It needs to be pollinated by another tree of a different variety nearby. You can either plant a self-fertile variety (which will pollinate itself and the Bramley's Seedling) or you can plant two pollination partners which must each be of different varieties and able to cross-pollinate each other as well as the Bramley's Seedling. If you need further advice on this just get in touch. Since it flowers in the middle of the blossom season it can be pollinated by most other apple trees.
Our online pollination checker lists suitable pollination partners for this variety.
More advice about pollination.
Bramley's Seedling is a vigorous tree, and if grown on anything other than a dwarfing rootstock will need plenty of space. Like many vigorous varieties it is a triploid, with 3 sets of genes rather than 2. The vigour can also be seen in the strong dark-coloured leaves. Bramley's Seedling is quite easy to grow, its great vigour and natural disease resistance means it usually throws off problems fairly easily.
As a triploid variety, Bramley's Seedling needs 2 separate compatible pollination partners. In most suburban or small orchard environments you can usually assume there will be suitable varieties nearby. However, if you want to be certain then choose 2 different additional varieties to plant alongside. In practice most later-flowering apple or crab-apple varieties are likely to be suitable. Note that the partner trees do not have to be the same size as the Bramley's Seedling - a small cordon or patio tree will be fine.
The pink-flushed white blossom is prolific and attractive. The fruit ripens late in the season, and stores very well.
In the UK we also offer an alternative selection known as Bramley 20 which is about 20% less vigourous than Bramley's Seedling, and therefore produces a smaller tree which is better suited for smaller gardens. The apples are the same size.
Bramley's Seedling is one of the best English apples for growing in Europe and North America. Although it thrives in the cool temperate climate of an English summer, it is just as happy in hotter continental climates.
Planting instructions.
Pruning instructions.
Nottingham, England, 1809. In the UK some of our Bramley trees have been propagated from a tree which was in turn propagated in 2005 directly from the original tree - these are listed as "original".
