Pakistan Gardening Forum

Hi everyone.


Can someone please guide me as to which variety of apple is suitable to be planted in Islamabad. I would like to grow them in large pots on the roof. I've seen many many pics and articles of apple trees in pots with many many fruits. There is a method of pruning trees so that they are only 8-10 ft high and 2-3 feet wide and can be grown large 10 to 15 gallon pots. These trees are called columnar trees.

I guess the two main considerations would be that the variety needs to be of the low chill requirement and secondly of the spur forming habit.
i've only found one nursery located haripur who have a website and list their varieties and one in sindh being run by an NGO. I believe that if we can get both these characteristics in a variety apples in pots will be popular idea and us gardeners can also enjoy homegrown fruit as well. Check these pics to get an idea of what im talking about.

Apples are not suited to our climate.try pear tree instead.

if you do ever find some one selling columnar apple trees in pakistan let me know i would be interested in getting a few as well

Sure thing.

As far as I remember, I saw a program on TV regarding a variety of apple suitable for growing in warmer climate. A small orchard was shown fruiting within the vicinity of Hyderabad.

Syzygium malaccense is a plant which bear similar fruits and grow well in Karachi.

Most varieties of Apple in our country needs a certain amount of time with temperature below 7 oC , this is called chill hours. Ours apple varieties need 500 to 1000 chill hours, but there are low-chill varieties that need no more than about 300 hours of chill, unfortunately not available in Pakistan. Southern California has similar winter as compared to our most cities like Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Mardan etc. They are growing Fuji, Gala, Golden Delicious, Anna and some other varieties of apple successfully. Gala is Small to medium-sized, conic-shaped red apple with excellent flavor is the most successful variety of all.

I was researching the topic and found out that suitable columnar apples in our climate the variety would have to be
1. low chill (chill hours less than 500 hours)
2. spur bearing
3. be grafted on fully dwarfing root-stock
4. be pruned to produce a columnar habit
5. headed to a height of 8-10 feet.

As already pointed out by worthy fellow gardeners Izhar sb. and Mir Afzal Khan sb. I happened to stumble onto the web site of a Hyderabad based NGO created in the memory of the late M.H.Panhwar who claim that they have been successfully growing low chill varieties of apples namely Anna, Golden Dorset and the Einshmer. Anna and Einshmer both were developed in Israel to grow and produce in a Mediterranean climate so should work here as well. I've e-mailed them to see if they would be kind enough to provide us with a few saplings.

sounds great !

sara wrote:sounds great !

yes you right.. any more images for more clarification??

Hello friends. I am new here and love to do gardening. I got seeds of Columnar apples and I have sowed them. Waiting for sprouting and hopefully they would do well. I feel they are OK for weather of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.