Apple Tree - Golden Ball

Apple Tree - Golden Ball

A terrific cider apple originating from West Dorset, around Netherbury. Picked late, heavy cropping. Medium sharp, clean tasting cider. It has lots of synonyms - Neverblight, Polly, Yeovil Sour, Go Boyn - suggesting it's pretty old, but like a lot of traditional cider varieties it's impossible to know exactly when it first arose.

Once found widely across Dorset and Somerset, this was the tree which originally inspired Liz Copas to start her lost orchards project.

Confusingly, there's another Gold Ball apple in the U.S., which is not related.

Supplier: Adam's Apples

Depending on the tannin and acidity of their juice, cider apples are divided into bittersweets, bittersharps, sweets, and sharps. Most cider orchards are a mixture of varieties, making a blended cider, but there are some individual ciders made - for example, Kingston Black. They will only grow in the West, where conditions suit them, and are particularly concentrated in Somerset and Herefordshire.

See our section on Pollination Groups to help you select your apple trees.

We supply apple trees on the most vigorous rootstocks available. They were created specifically for use in the UK and produce healthy, heavy cropping trees for our weather conditions.

M106 produces a good garden sized apple tree, around 4 metres tall. Grown as a free standing tree it won't need staking, although initially best to use a cane to support your new plant. M25 rootstock will produce the 6m standard trees of a traditional orchard, where they would be planted between 6 and 8 metres apart. Please refer to our size guide for details.

All our apple trees are bare root so they are only available between November and April. During lifting season, there will be a delay between placing the order and dispatching due to pressure of orders, which are dealt with in date sequence, and the weather. Orders taken from June-October will be confirmed in late October/ early November after a nursery stock take, for dispatch from November.

Your purchase helps us support a range of charities, which are related to the products we sell.

Have a look at our videos on what to do when your plants arrive and how to plant a bare root tree.