Katy is one of the best early/mid season apple varieties. It is utterly reliable, producing large quantities of attractive red apples almost regardless of the weather or the horticultural ability of the owner. The tree grows in a neat and tidy fashion and rarely needs pruning. The spring blossom is particularly attractive, and also long-lasting, making it an excellent pollinator for many other apple varieties. It is a good choice if you are new to growing apple trees.
Katy is an attractive medium-sized apple, usually pink/red to bright red in colour over a light green yellow background. The flesh is a pale cream colour, and on the softer side of crunchy.
Katy has a fairly mild apple flavour, a bit of refreshing acidity, and in a good year a hint of strawberry. Like most early apples the flavour is sharper rather than sweeter. It is usually very juicy, and when fresh from the tree the juice goes everywhere as you bite into it.
Katy is a very versatile apple. If you get too many to eat (which is the usual situation with Katy), then it is an excellent variety for juicing, and it can be used for baking. Katy is also a popular apple with children, the size makes it ideal as a healthy school snack, and whilst you might think children would only eat very sweet apples, in tasting tests they seem to like the slight sharpness in Katy.
**All prices include delivery (except certain fan-trained or espalier-trained trees). We offer a discount on orders of multiple bare-root trees for delivery at the same time - this will be shown at the checkout.
Fan-trained and Espalier trees: Prices of these trees do NOT include delivery as these require special delivery arrangements - click here for details.
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.
Katy is self-sterile and needs to be pollinated by another tree of a different variety nearby. 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.
Katy is one of the easiest apples to grow yourself. The tree is neat and attractive and makes a nice garden feature, and it grows well on dwarf rootstocks. It seems to shrug off the usual apple diseases without problem, and is thus a good choice if you do not want to use chemical sprays in the garden.
It is quite a heavy-cropper and benefits from some thinning of the fruitlets in early June - this will improve the size of the remaining apples. However apart from this, Katy generally needs minimal attention from the gardener and is best left to get on with growing and fruiting, which it does perfectly well of its own accord. The one thing to look out for is that once ripe the apples fall fairly easily from the tree, so it is best to start picking as soon as you see some starting to fall - this is not a variety where you can leave the apples on the tree.
Katy is very well-suited to cool temperate climates, and crops reliably regardless of a good or indifferent summer. It is one of the best varieties to consider if you want to grow apples in a cold/wet situation, yet does well in warmer climates as well.
Katy is a good pollinator of other apple varieties, as it produces a large quantity of long-lasting blossom - a characteristic it inherits from one of its parents, James Grieve.
All in all, an excellent variety to try if you are new to growing apple trees.
Planting instructions.
Pruning instructions.
Originates from Sweden, where it is known as Katya. It is a cross between James Grieve and Worcester Pearmain.
