Malus domestica Golden Delicious (Semi-Dwarf Apple)

One of the world's great apple varieties, Malus domestica 'Golden Delicious' is a culinary or dessert cultivar with a profusion of fragrant, white flowers in late mid-season (mid-late spring). Draped in clusters along the branches, they are truly a sight to behold. The flowers attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. They are followed in fall by heavy, regular crops of medium to large, greenish-yellow apples becoming bright golden-yellow as they mature. Exceptionally sweet, crisp, juicy, aromatic, they are flavorful and snack-worthy, perfect for eating, cooking, making salad and sauces. Golden Delicious is self-fertile but requires pollination by a tree of another variety with the same bloom period for better yields, such as Fuji, Gala or Red Delicious. This is a heavily bearing cultivar that is heat-tolerant and cold-hardy. Discovered by a West Virginia farmer in the 19th century, Golden Delicious remains as popular as ever. Beautiful in bloom, heavy with luscious apples, picturesque when old, apple trees are very rewarding additions to the landscape.

• Recipient of the prestigious Award of Garden Merit of the Royal Horticultural Society.
• Grows up to 12-15 ft. tall and wide (3-5 m).
• A full sun lover, this tree is easily grown in deep, loamy, moderately fertile, medium moisture, well-drained soils. Prefers a sheltered, frost-free position.
• Since edible apple cultivars do not grow well on their own roots, most varieties have been grafted onto rootstocks and are classified as dwarf (8-10 ft, 2-3 m), semi-dwarf (12-15 ft, 3-5 m) and standard (18-25 ft, 5-8 m). The fruit itself is full size and not dwarfed. Dwarf or semi-dwarf apple trees offer some benefits: they produce fruit at an earlier age and are easier to manage (spray, prune and harvest).
• Apples should be pruned every year to get the best crop. They also need to be thinned to about 8 in. apart (20 cm) if you want to reap the best-quality fruit.
• This deciduous apple tree adds a charming presence, tucked into a shrub border or planted as a specimen.
• Keep an eye out for aphids, woolly aphid, rosy apple aphid, fruit tree red spider mite, mussel scale, codling moth, caterpillars, Apple scab, apple canker, powdery mildews, blossom wilt and honey fungus.
• Propagate by chip budding or grafting onto a clonal rootstock for fruit.