🍎 Apples & Apple Trees in the UK

What is an apple tree?

The cultivated apple tree is usually known as Malus domestica and belongs to the rose family (Rosaceae), alongside plants such as pears, plums and roses.

Cultivated apple trees are not native to Britain. Their ancestry can be traced back to wild apples from Central Asia, although European crab apples contributed genetically as cultivated apples spread across Europe. Britain does have a native relative, the crab apple (Malus sylvestris).

Apple trees are generally small to medium-sized trees and can reach around 10 metres tall, although many modern trees are grafted onto rootstocks that keep them considerably smaller. Their leaves are oval with toothed edges, and their beautiful pink-white blossom appears in spring before the fruit develops.

🌳 Where do apple trees grow?

Apple trees are grown throughout the UK in:

• traditional orchards

• commercial fruit farms

• gardens and allotments

• community orchards

• smallholdings and farms.

Cultivated apples can also escape into the countryside and become naturalised. Individual apple trees can therefore sometimes be found growing in hedgerows, scrub, copses, roadsides and rough ground.

They generally grow best in a sunny position with fertile soil that retains moisture but does not remain waterlogged. Different varieties and rootstocks allow apple trees to be grown in everything from large traditional orchards to small gardens and even containers.

🌳 What is an orchard?

An orchard is an area where trees or shrubs are deliberately planted to produce food, most commonly fruits such as:

🍎 apples
🍐 pears
🍒 cherries
🟣 plums

Apple cultivars are the most common trees found in UK orchards.

Traditional orchards are particularly special because they combine features of several different habitats. An old orchard can contain trees, grassland, meadow, deadwood, flowers and hedgerows, creating lots of different places for wildlife to live.

Older fruit trees also develop cracks, holes and dead branches much sooner than many woodland trees. Although a dead branch might look untidy to us, it can provide valuablehabitat for insects, fungi and other organisms.

🐝 Apple trees and wildlife

Apple trees can support wildlife throughout the year.

🌸 Spring — blossom

Apple blossom provides nectar and pollen for visiting insects. Bees and other pollinators moving between flowers also help the apple trees themselves because many varieties need pollen from another compatible apple tree to produce a good crop.

🌳 Summer — shelter

The branches and leaves provide places for insects to feed and hide and for birds to rest and nest. Bushy apple trees can provide nesting places for blackbirds, while bullfinches may feed on the buds.

🍎 Autumn and winter — food

Not every apple is picked by humans. Windfalls drop to the ground and become an important food source.

Animals recorded feeding in traditional orchards include:

thrushes • hedgehogs • badgers • insects and other invertebrates

Traditional orchards can also support less common wildlife, including species such as the noble chafer beetle and lesser spotted woodpecker.

So leaving some fallen fruit in a safe part of an orchard can form part of the orchard's natural food web.

🍏 Britain's incredible apple varieties

One of the most fascinating things about British apples is their diversity.

More than 2,500 different apple varieties have been bred in the UK, while thousands more exist worldwide.

Apples are usually grouped according to their use.

Dessert/eating apples are usually eaten raw.

Cooking apples tend to be sharper and are excellent in pies, crumbles, sauces and baked dishes.

Cider apples are selected for qualities that make them useful for producing cider.

Some apples are dual-purpose and can be used for both eating and cooking.

Well-known and historic varieties include Bramley's Seedling, Cox's Orange Pippin, Discovery, Flower of Kent, Costard, Lane's Prince Albert and many regional heritage varieties.

And some of the old names are fantastic: the Woodland Trust gives examples including Broad-Eyed Pippin and Peasgood's Nonsuch. 😂🍎

🏺 Apples in British history

Wild apples were present in Neolithic Britain, but the Romans are associated with introducing sweeter cultivated apples and establishing early British orchards.

After the Norman Conquest, orchards were developed again, including orchards associated with monasteries.

One medieval variety was called the Costard. Sellers of these apples became known as costardmongers, which contributed to the later English word costermonger for a fruit and vegetable seller.

By Tudor times, apple cultivation was developing further. Henry VIII had new varieties brought to an orchard at Teynham in Kent.

By the mid-17th century, around 60 cultivars were recorded in UK production for uses including eating, cooking and cider making.

Apple breeding flourished particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Cox's Orange Pippin was introduced by Richard Cox, while Bramley's Seedling became one of Britain's most famous cooking apples.

🍎 Newton's apple

The apple is famously connected with Sir Isaac Newton and the development of his ideas about gravity.

The historic variety associated with the story is Flower of Kent, which still exists today.

The popular image of an apple actually hitting Newton on the head is an embellishment of the story; the important part of the tradition is that observing an apple fall prompted him to think about why objects fall towards Earth.

🧺 The loss of traditional orchards

Britain once contained huge numbers of small local orchards and regional apple varieties.

During the late 19th century, British growers faced increasing competition from imported fruit. Commercial production increasingly concentrated on varieties that could be produced economically, while expanding towns and cities also contributed to the disappearance of small orchards.

As a result, some traditional apple varieties became rare or disappeared entirely.

Protecting old orchards therefore isn't only about preserving apples. It protects:

wildlife + local history + traditional landscapes + genetic diversity + regional food heritage.

✨ Apples, folklore, magic, superstition and traditional beliefs

Apples have acquired an enormous amount of symbolism over thousands of years.

💕 Love and fertility

European folklore has associated apples with love, fertility and relationships.

One old superstition involved peeling an apple in one continuous strip and throwing the peel over your shoulder. The shape it formed when it landed was supposedly the initial of your future partner.

🌱 Youth and immortality

Apples feature in both Norse and Celtic traditions as symbols associated with youth and immortality.

In Norse mythology, apples are particularly associated with maintaining the youth of the gods.

🏝️ Avalon

The legendary Avalon of Arthurian tradition is associated with apples — its name is commonly interpreted in connection with the Isle of Apples.

In later Arthurian tradition, the mortally wounded King Arthur is taken to Avalon.

That gives apples a particularly lovely connection with ideas of:

healing • the Otherworld • transformation • rest • immortality

within folklore and modern magical interpretations.

⚖️ Knowledge and temptation

Apples have also become symbols of knowledge, temptation and forbidden things, particularly through later artistic and religious traditions.

Interestingly, the fruit in the biblical story of Adam and Eve is not actually identified as an apple in the biblical text. The apple became associated with the story through later European tradition and imagery.

Greek mythology also contains stories involving golden apples, where the fruit can represent beauty, desire, immortality or something highly prized.

🍻 Wassailing the apple trees

Orchard wassailing is a traditional winter custom practised particularly in apple and pear growing areas.

People gather in an orchard, make noise, sing and ceremonially honour or bless the trees in the hope of encouraging a good harvest in the coming year.

The word wassail is associated with the Old English “was hál”, meaning roughly “be in good health.”

Some traditions involve placing cider-soaked toast in the branches of an apple tree. Noise, singing and procession are also associated with wassailing, and versions of the tradition continue in Britain today.

🌙 Apples in modern magical traditions

In contemporary witchcraft and magical practice, apples may be symbolically associated with things such as:

love • abundance • fertility • healing • protection • wisdom • gratitude • harvest • the Otherworld

These associations draw on a mixture of older mythology, folklore and newer magical traditions rather than one single historical belief system.

Another modern symbolic connection comes from cutting an apple horizontally through its middle. The five seed chambers form a star-like arrangement, which practitioners may interpret as a pentagram/pentacle-like symbol.