Red Windsor® apple trees

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• Picking season: Mid Early September
• Self-fertility: Self-fertile
• Flowering group: 2
• Awards: RHS AGM (current) 2019
• List of other varieties that will pollinate Red Windsor

Red Windsor is one of the easiest to grow of all dessert apple trees, and with a pleasant apple flavour.

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Red Windsor apple trees for sale

If you are new to growing apple trees, Red Windsor is one of the easiest and most reliable of all apple varieties.

It is self-fertile, so there is no need to worry about pollination partners. It grows naturally in a neat and tidy fashion, and crops heavily. The apples can be picked over several weeks so you don't have to deal with a glut. It seems untroubled by the usual diseases of apples, and the blossom also has some resistance to frost.

Red Windsor is a red sport (natural mutation) of a German variety called Alkmene, derived from Cox's Orange Pippin - hence the good flavour. It has a noticeably redder and less Cox-like appearance than Alkmene, although the characteristic Cox flushed striping can usually be discerned.

Perhaps most important of all, Red Windsor has a good robust apple flavour with some aromatic qualities. It is fairly well balanced, both sweet and sharp, perhaps slightly sharper than Cox.

Red Windsor is grown commercially on a small-scale in the UK, and sometimes marketed as Sweet Lilibet.

How to grow

Red Windsor is a great mid-season apple variety for the UK garden. It is easy to grow and crops heavily. As mentioned above, it is self-fertile, a rare feature in apple varieties.

Interestingly, Red Windsor is reasonably disease-resistant - this is despite the fact that neither of its parents have a good track-record in this respect.

The blossom also has some resistance to late frosts.

Red Windsor is a naturally small / weak-vigour tree and grows in a compact style, so it is a good choice if you are short of space. Maiden trees tend to be quite small, without side shoots. If you intend to train the tree as a half-standard then use MM106 or MM111 rootstocks.

Being a mid-season variety, Red Windsor is also a good choice for difficult situations where light is limited, or where the summer growing season is short.

Advice on fruit tree pollination.

History

Red Windsor was developed in Herefordshire in the 1980s as a red sport of Alkmene. Its parentage is Cox's Orange Pippin and Duchess of Oldenburg.

Red Windsor characteristics