Silver Creek Nursery Ltd.

Smokehouse Apple Bareroot

History: In the 1830s in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a seedling apple tree grew beside the smokehouse of William Gibbons. Perhaps it sprang from a core that some one had tossed there while they tended the fire. Who knows? What we do know is that the aptly named Smokehouse was commonly grown in the area until its popularity waned as sweeter apple varieties appeared on the market. Still, this variety has stood the test of time due to its great flavour. 

Why We Grow It:  Traditionally Smokehouse apples are picked a little early and used for baking, but if they're allowed to ripen fully on the tree, some people have described the balanced flavour as being “like drinking fresh-pressed cider!”. 

      $56.50

      Rootstock
      Size

      20 in stock

      Fruit Traits:

      Recommended Use: Fresh eating, cooking, juice

      Fruit Size: Large

      Storage: Keeps until March when stored in cold storage

      Harvest: October - Early

      Cider Class (if applicable):

      Tree Traits:

      Canadian Hardiness Zone: 3

      Soil Preferance: Sandy loam, loam, clay loam. Prefers average to moist conditions, avoid planting anywhere that floods for more than two weeks in the spring. Generally quite adaptable to different soil conditions.

      Flowering Time: Early

      Bloom Colour: White

      Pollination Requirements: Requires a pollinator of a different apple variety that blooms around the same time

      Sun/Shade Requirements: Full sun (approx. 8-10 hours of sun daily)

      General Growth Habit: Vigorous and precocious, begins bearing fruit at a young age and has good crops, spur bearing. Susceptible to scab but very resistant to mildew and fireblight.

      Overall Disease Resistance Rating*: High

      *this rating is combined with our experience growing in our test orchards combined with already available information on the cultivar.

      Shipping: Every year we ship thousands of plants across Canada. We carefully bag roots in damp sawdust, then box them and send them out via courier. CLICK HERE to see our shipping policy.

      Pick-up: We also have thousands of trees picked up from our nursery each year. The pick-up options is free, though you must wait until you have been emailed a confirmation that your order is ready to pick up, which will have further information such as hours, locations, etc.

      Our grafted fruit trees are graded into two categories, and the size includes the rootstock:

      • 50-80cm grade: Smaller trees that may have some minor branching, this grade is like a "b-grade" size tree according to industry standards. This size may include trees that are over 1m but have some scarring or mild crookedness.
      • 1m+ grade: Trees that are over 1m tall, some may have no branches and others may have light feathering or a few established branches 

      Please keep in mind, bareroot trees appear small if you are unfamiliar with them. Size can vary year to year due to weather conditions and every single variety has a unique amount of vigour (some varieties naturally are smaller and some bigger, much like humans -and when you propagate hundreds of varieties, there certainly is variation). While we remain competitive in our plant size, it's also worth noting we don't use synthetic chemicals to push vegetative growth. Therefore you may find some conventional nursery stock larger in comparison. 


      Why plant small? It's best to transplant a tree when it's young so it can establish its roots before it has a lot of vegetative growth. This is much less stressful on it and after a few years bareroot trees tend to catch up and even surpass larger potted trees planted at the same time.

      Orders that are cancelled last minute due to size (being "too small"), will still incur the applicable cancellation fees if the trees are true to our grading standards as per the agreement of sale when the order was placed.

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