Kingston Black Apple Bareroot

Spring Planting (Ship or Pickup March - May 2027)

Grown by: Silver Creek Nursery Ltd.

Why We Grow It: This English cider apple produces a well-balanced juice, capable of creating a vintage cider of excellent quality. Although the variety has its downsides, there is a reason it has remained popular with cider enthusiasts.

Recommended Use: Cider

Fruit Size: Medium

Storage: Keeps a couple of weeks when stored in cool, humid conditions

Harvest: October - Late

Cider or Perry Class (if applicable):

  • Bittersharp

Class: Bittersharp
Sugar: High, SG 1.061
Acidity: Medium, 5.8 g/L
Tannins: Medium, 1.9 g/L
Juice Yield: Low
Taste: Well-balanced, mildly bitter with a great apple flavour and hints of butterscotch and citrus
Recommendations: Produces a great single-variety cider
*Information based on Claude Jolicoeur's The New Cidermaker's Handbook and Washington State University's "Cultivar Performance Gallery"

Canadian Hardiness Zone: 5

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: Middle

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: Moderately vigorous, low precocity, with a spreading growth habit, slow to start producing fruit and has poor crops, spur bearing. Susceptible to scab and canker but resistant to brown rot.

Overall Grower Ease Rating: Low

This rating is a combination of our experience growing in our test orchards and current available information on the cultivar.

Kingston Black is named after the English town Kingston St Mary where it was grown in orchards around a parish. Its dark maroon flesh earned the second part of its name, 'black.' This apple produces a great single-variety cider which made it quite popular by the 1800s and by 1950 it was the most commonly grown cider apple in the West of England. Although its popularity has waned due to its poor cropping and disease susceptibility, it is still renowned among cider enthusiasts.

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.

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, location, etc.

When Will My Order Be Ready?

By default, all bareroot plants are only available for spring planting (late March to late May).

Spring: Spring orders are generally ready to be picked up or shipped out anywhere from late March to late May! We will be in touch in the spring once your order is ready to go. Orders placed in the spring might not be ready for 1-2 weeks as this is a very busy time of year for us.

Fall: Customers are welcome to request fall pickup or shipping for orders that only contain bareroot apples and pears. Fall orders are generally ready to be picked up or shipped out around mid-November.

We only recommend fall planting for experienced growers located in areas that are zone 6 or warmer. Bareroot plants planted in the Fall are not covered under our 90 Day Guarantee.

$58.50

Rootstock: B9 Dwarf
Size: 1m+ grade

Out of stock

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