Plant Finder

Description:

An exceptional apple tree featuring showy light pink flowers in spring and delicious golden-yellow fruit on short spurs along the trunk in fall, tightly columnar habit of growth; makes a great accent for smaller areas needs well-drained soil and full sun

Edible Qualities

Golden Sentinel™ Columnar Apple is a small tree that is commonly grown for its edible qualities, although it does have ornamental merits as well. It produces large yellow round apples (which are botanically known as 'pomes') with hints of gold and white flesh which are usually ready for picking from late summer to early fall. The apples have a sweet taste and a juicy texture.

The apples are most often used in the following ways:

• Fresh Eating
• Baking
• Juice-Making
• Sauces

Features & Attributes

Golden Sentinel™ Columnar Apple is bathed in stunning clusters of fragrant white flowers with shell pink overtones along the branches in mid spring, which emerge from distinctive red flower buds before the leaves. It has dark green deciduous foliage. The pointy leaves turn yellow in fall. The fruits are showy yellow apples with hints of gold, which are carried in abundance from mid to late summer.

This is a deciduous tree with a narrowly upright and columnar growth habit. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition. This is a high maintenance plant that will require regular care and upkeep, and is best pruned in late winter once the threat of extreme cold has passed. Gardeners should be aware of the following characteristic(s) that may warrant special consideration;

• Disease

Aside from its primary use as an edible, Golden Sentinel™ Columnar Apple is sutiable for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Vertical Accent
• Hedges/Screening
• General Garden Use
• Orchard/Edible Landscaping
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Golden Sentinel™ Columnar Apple will grow to be about 10 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 3 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 2 feet from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 50 years or more. This variety requires a different selection of the same species growing nearby in order to set fruit.

This tree is quite ornamental as well as edible, and is as much at home in a landscape or flower garden as it is in a designated edibles garden. It should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is highly tolerant of urban pollution and will even thrive in inner city environments. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid.

Golden Sentinel™ Columnar Apple is a good choice for the edible garden, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. Its large size and upright habit of growth lend it for use as a solitary accent, or in a composition surrounded by smaller plants around the base and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.