Discover our unique apple varieties

If you want a tree that stops visitors in their tracks, the Arkansas Black is the ultimate showstopper for a backyard orchard. Originating in Arkansas around 1870, this legendary heirloom produces fruit so dark red it looks almost pitch-black hanging on the branch.

It is a rugged, beautiful, and intensely flavorful apple that rewards the patient backyard orchardist like no other variety can.

Why Home Growers Love It:

The Ultimate Winter Keeper: Fresh off the tree in late October, the Arkansas Black is rock-hard and intensely tart. But place it in cold storage or your refrigerator for 1 to 2 months, and magic happens. The skin takes on a beautiful, waxy sheen, and the dense flesh mellows into an incredibly rich, sweet, aromatic flavor with notes of honey and wine.

The Ultimate Processing Apple: Thanks to its high density and complex tart-to-sweet flavor profile, it holds its shape perfectly in baking, creates a gorgeous deep-colored applesauce, and adds unmatched depth and body to backyard hard cider blends.

Tough and Resilient: This tree is famously hardy. It has excellent resistance to cedar apple rust and fire blight, handles summer heat beautifully, and behaves exceptionally well in high-density backyard systems or open-vase pruning.

Grow the crown jewel of winter heirlooms.

Imagine biting into an apple fresh off the tree and tasting the distinct, natural warmth of brown sugar and cinnamon. That is exactly what you get with Cinnamon Spice. Discovered as a chance seedling in Bolinas, California, this unique heirloom is prized by backyard growers for delivering a literal "apple pie flavor" straight from the branch.

If you are looking for a highly unique, dessert-quality apple that you will absolutely never find in a grocery store, this is a must-have addition to your collection.

Why Home Growers Love It:

Built-In Autumn Flavor: The skin is a beautiful, deep dark red, occasionally showing yellow-green highlights. Inside, the cream-colored flesh is crisp and juicy, packing a rich, sweet flavor with a unmistakable, natural hint of cinnamon spice.

The Ultimate Dessert & Baking Apple: While it is a fantastic, sweet fresh-eating apple for kids and adults alike, it truly shines in the kitchen. Using Cinnamon Spice in pies, tarts, or applesauce means you can cut back on added sugar and spices—the apple naturally does the heavy lifting.

Easygoing Growth Habit: The tree has a naturally relaxed, spreading growth habit. It responds beautifully to pruning, making it incredibly easy to keep at a manageable height for easy netting, spraying, and harvesting in a smaller yard.

Reliable Autumn Harvest: Ready to pick in mid-to-late September, it provides a heavy, reliable harvest right as the fall baking season kicks into high gear.

Grow the flavor of fall in your own backyard.

Ask any serious fruit connoisseur to name the absolute best-tasting apple in the world, and Cox's Orange Pippin will almost always top the list. Raised from a chance seedling in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1830 by retired brewer Richard Cox, this legendary heirloom is universally celebrated as the pinnacle of complex apple flavor.

For the backyard orchardist who prioritizes unparalleled eating quality over boring commercial uniformity, this is the ultimate variety to grow at home.

Why Home Growers Love It:

The Masterclass Flavor Profile: The deep yellow flesh is exceptionally fine-textured, crisp, and firm. Every bite delivers an intense, aromatic explosion that perfectly balances rich sweetness and refreshing tartness. Fruit enthusiasts often detect complex, subtle undertones of honey, pear, orange, and even melon.

The Multi-Purpose Epicurean Choice: While it is the undisputed king of fresh dessert apples, its intense aromatics and high juice content make it a world-class addition to artisan hard ciders and gourmet baked goods.

Beautiful Heritage Appearance: It is a striking fruit to see hanging on the tree. It features an attractive orange-red flush over a greenish-yellow background, highlighted by characteristically fine, golden-brown russet patches around the stem.

Perfect Mid-Autumn Harvest: Ripening in late September to early October, it bridges the gap perfectly between your mid-summer varieties and late-fall winter keepers, storing well for up to two months.

Grow the apple that redefined fruit flavor.

If you love the crisp, juicy texture of a classic New York Empire apple but want a tree that packs maximum visual punch and easier orchard management, the Royal Empire is the ultimate choice. Discovered as a premium branch sport (natural mutation) in a Wolcott, New York orchard in 1992, this variety elevates everything growers love about the standard Empire to royal status.  

It takes the world-famous parentage of McIntosh and Red Delicious and packages it into a stunning, deep scarlet-red fruit that looks as incredible hanging on the branch as it does in a gourmet fruit bowl.  

Why Home Growers Love It:

The Perfect Sweet-Tart Harmony: It perfectly blends the refreshing, vinous tang of a McIntosh with the deep, solid sweetness of a Red Delicious. The result is a creamy-white, exceptionally crisp flesh with a satisfying, juicy snap that resists getting mealy.  

Gorgeous, Uniform Coloring: Standard Empires can sometimes color unevenly in backyard shade. Sport Empire is bred to color early and deeply, turning a rich, uniform ruby-red with faint stripes weeks before harvest, ensuring nearly 100% of your crop looks professional-grade.  

Low-Maintenance, High Yields: This tree is a naturally strong, upright grower that is highly productive. For backyard growers looking for a low-spray setup, it brings excellent built-in resistance to cedar apple rust and solid resistance to fire blight.  

The Mid-September Anchor: While many heavy-hitting heirlooms ripen late in October, Sport Empire anchors your mid-season harvest. It drops right in mid-to-late September and keeps beautifully in cold storage for months.  

Upgrade your orchard with a modern classic.

Born in Japan, beloved by the world. The Fuji apple was developed in 1939 at the Tohoku Research Station in Fujisaki, Aomori Prefecture — a cross between two classic American varieties, Red Delicious and the heritage Ralls Janet — and it took nearly two decades of careful selection before it was deemed ready for the world. Released commercially in 1962, it spread from Japan to Washington State orchards in the 1980s and never looked back. Today the Fuji is the most widely planted apple cultivar on earth by volume, grown commercially across China, the United States, Chile, Italy, and beyond. It didn't get there by accident.

What sets Fuji apart is its extraordinary sweetness. With a sugar content measuring 14–16% Brix — among the highest of any apple variety — it delivers a dense, crisp, exceptionally juicy bite with notes of honey, citrus, and fresh apple blossom. The real showstopper is what Japanese growers call mitsu — translucent, honey-sweet pockets near the core produced by natural sorbitol accumulation. When you slice open a well-grown Fuji and see that honeying near the core, you know you've grown something special. The fruit itself is large to very large, with a gorgeous yellow-green base flushed with deep red striping that makes it one of the most attractive apples in any orchard.

If there is one apple that belongs in every backyard orchard, it's the Gala. Originally developed in 1930s New Zealand by orchardist J.H. Kidd — crossing the beloved Kidd's Orange Red with the iconic Golden Delicious — the Gala spent decades quietly earning its reputation before taking the world by storm. By 2018 it had officially overtaken Red Delicious as the number one apple variety in the United States by production volume, a title it holds to this day. The numbers don't lie: America chose the Gala, and once you grow one, you'll understand why.

The fruit itself is a masterclass in balance. Medium-sized with a beautiful yellow base flushed with warm orange-red striping, Gala produces creamy white flesh that is fine-grained, juicy, and wonderfully aromatic — with delicate notes of vanilla, pear, and apple blossom in every bite. The flavor is sweet and approachable without being one-dimensional, carrying just enough brightness to keep it interesting. It ripens early to mid-season, typically August into September in Pennsylvania, putting fresh homegrown apples in your hand ahead of most other varieties on the market.

An easy grower in USDA zones 4–9, Gala thrives in Pennsylvania's climate with no fuss — it wants full sun, good drainage, and a cross-pollinating partner nearby. Use it fresh, slice it into salads, press it for cider, or sauce it on the stove. Whatever you ask of it, Gala delivers.

Few apples have an origin story as remarkable as the Granny Smith. In 1868, on a small farm in Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia, a British-born orchardist named Maria Ann Smith — affectionately known to her neighbors simply as "Granny" Smith — noticed something unusual growing from her compost pile near a creek on her property. A chance seedling had sprouted from discarded apple cores, and instead of pulling it up, she propagated it. What grew from that compost pile would go on to become one of the most recognized apples on earth. By the 1890s local farmers were trading cuttings. By the early 1900s merchants were cold-storing and shipping them overseas. By 1975, forty percent of Australia's entire apple crop was Granny Smith. Today it ranks as the third most popular apple in the United States — and it earned every bit of that standing.

The Granny Smith is immediately identifiable by its brilliant, glossy lime-green skin — firm, smooth, and unmistakable in any orchard or market. Beneath that thick skin lies crisp, dense white flesh with a bold, refreshing tartness and bright acidity that sets it apart from every sweeter variety in the lineup. It's the apple that wakes your palate up. That signature tang makes it the gold standard for baking — it holds its shape and flavor beautifully under heat, never turning mushy in a pie — and its sharp bite balances perfectly against caramel, cheese, and rich dressings, making it equally at home in the kitchen as in the hand. It's also an exceptional cider apple, bringing the acidity that blended cider presses crave.

Don't let the rough, sand-colored skin fool you—Hudson's Golden Gem is widely considered by fruit connoisseurs to be the single finest russet apple ever discovered. Discovered as a chance seedling in an Oregon hedgerow in 1931, it delivers an incredibly refined flavor profile that tastes shockingly like a sweet, ripe pear.

If you want a backyard apple that shatters the expectation of what a grocery store apple can be, this is a must-have addition to your orchard collection.

Why Home Growers Love It:

The "Apple-Pear" Flavor Profile: The flesh is crisp, pale yellow, and exceptionally juicy. Every bite bursts with a rich, sugary sweetness and a distinct, prominent flavor of ripe Bosc pear combined with a nutty, honeyed finish.

Excellent Scab Resistance: One of the biggest headaches for home orchardists is apple scab. Hudson's Golden Gem is highly resistant to it, making it an excellent, low-maintenance choice for backyard growers looking for a reliable, clean harvest without heavy spraying.

A Reliable Late-Season Keeper: Ready for harvest in late October, these golden-bronze gems hold up beautifully on the tree and store exceptionally well in a fridge or cellar for up to 3 months, sweetening even further over time.

Grow something completely unique.

If you see a York Imperial, you will probably recognize it by its quirky posture—it is famous for being uniquely lopsided, with an asymmetrical, slanted shape.  

Appearance: The skin is a yellowish-green base covered with a light red blush, carmine stripes, and occasional greenish-yellow specks (russeting).   

Flesh: Inside, the flesh is yellowish or off-white, dense, coarse-textured, and exceptionally crisp.  

Flavor Profile: Straight off the tree in late October, a York is famously tart. However, it mellows out and becomes noticeably sweeter and juicier after a few months of cold storage.  

Best Uses: Because it is so dense, it holds its shape beautifully under heat. This makes it an elite cooking and baking apple—perfect for pies, cobblers, and baked apples. It is also highly prized by commercial processors for applesauce and apple juice.  

History and Origins in Pennsylvania

The story of the York Imperial begins around 1820 in York County, Pennsylvania, and reads like a happy accident of nature.  

The Discovery

A farmer named John Kline (though some older accounts credit a Mr. Johnson) lived in Hellam, Pennsylvania. One early spring day, he noticed local schoolboys digging around in the wet leaves under a wild seedling apple tree on his property. They were retrieving apples that had dropped the previous autumn. Astoundingly, the apples hadn't rotted over the harsh winter; they were in perfectly crisp, edible condition.

If you love the legendarily complex flavor of an English Cox’s Orange Pippin but want a tree that handles warm summer heat and backyard disease pressure with ease, Kidd’s Orange Red is the ultimate upgrade. Bred in New Zealand in 1924 by master orchardist J.H. Kidd (the same genius who later developed the Gala), this variety is a masterclass cross between Cox’s Orange Pippin and the original Red Delicious.  

It takes the world’s finest aromatic flavor genetics and packages them into a rugged, reliable tree that outperforms its parentage in almost every home orchard.

Why Home Growers Love It:

The High-Sugar Flavor Bomb: Kidd’s Orange Red routinely wins high praise from tasters for being sweeter and richer than a standard Cox. The cream-colored flesh is compact, fine-grained, and intensely juicy, bursting with a perfect balance of rich sugar and mild acids, finished with a distinct, complex aroma of honey and fresh violets.  

Built-In Climate & Disease Resilience: Unlike its finicky English ancestors, this variety is highly adaptable and thrives in hot, interior summer climates. It brings excellent natural resistance to apple scab, fire blight, and cedar apple rust, making it a dream for low-spray or organic backyard setups.  

Trouble-Free Growing Habit: The tree boasts a naturally vigorous, spreading growth habit that is incredibly cooperative. It is highly precocious (frequently bearing fruit within 2 to 4 years of planting) and handles open-vase training or high-density backyard row systems beautifully.  

The Perfect Late-September Harvest: Ready for picking in mid-to-late September, the fruit hangs exceptionally well on the branch to allow a staggered harvest. It keeps beautifully in cold storage for up to two months, sweetening even further over time.  

Grow the flavor perfection commercial growers can't duplicate.

The Lemon Pippin gets its name because, quite literally, it looks and sometimes smells like a lemon.

Appearance: It has a medium-to-small size and a distinct, oval shape. Near the stem, the flesh often swells slightly to one side, completing the illusion of a ripe lemon. The skin is a solid golden-yellow, sometimes with a faint flush of orange or red where the sun hit it.  

Flesh: Inside, the flesh is firm, coarse-grained, and a creamy yellow-white. Notably, it doesn't brown very quickly when exposed to air.  

Flavor Profile: It has a crisp, sharp, and dry bite. It is sweet but perfectly balanced by a distinct tang of acid. Many people claim they can detect the subtle aroma of freshly cut lemons in the flesh.

Uses: Originally, it was highly prized as a dual-purpose apple. It is excellent for fresh eating, but in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was particularly famous for making tarts, apple jellies, and drying.  

A Mystery Centuries Old

Unlike the York Imperial or Hawkeye, which have exact origin stories on American farms, the Lemon Pippin is so old that its true beginnings are lost to history.

English or French?

The first formal, written description of the apple appeared in England in 1744 in a book called Modern Husbandman by William Ellis. However, most pomologists (apple experts) believe the apple is much older than that—perhaps dating back two centuries earlier.  

While the English lay claim to it, many historians believe it actually originated across the English Channel in the Normandy region of France, where it was historically known as the "Quince Apple." An English book from 1676, Vinetum Britannicum, lists a "Quince Apple" as being excellent for table eating and cider, which is likely the exact same fruit.  

Peak Popularity

Regardless of where the seed first sprouted, the Lemon Pippin became wildly popular throughout England during the 1700s and 1800s. It was a reliable tree that produced heavily, and like the York Imperial, the apples stored exceptionally well—lasting in cold storage for up to three months.  

Today, it is quite rare but is still grown by specialty heritage orchards and nurseries, beloved for its quirky lemon shape and sharp, sweet flavor.

If you ask historic fruit collectors for an apple that defines "exquisite flavor," the Mother apple (often called the American Mother) is always near the top of the list. Originating in Bolton, Massachusetts, around 1840, it was once declared by famous pomologists as "one of the most prized apples of all orchards."  

While it nearly disappeared from American commercial production because it doesn't store for months on end, it became an absolute darling in English estate gardens for one simple reason: its unbeatable fresh-eating quality.

Why Home Growers Love It:

An Exotic "Balsamic & Pear" Flavor: The Mother apple is a premier dessert fruit meant to be eaten fresh right off the branch. The creamy-yellow flesh is exceptionally tender, crisp, and bursting with juice. It features a uniquely rich, sweet-tart profile with a distinct aromatic hint of vanilla, wintergreen, and what old-timers describe as a sweet pear or balsamic fragrance.  

Beautiful Orchard Presentation: It is a stunning piece of fruit to watch ripen. The skin features a beautiful golden-yellow background heavily marbled and striped with deep, bright crimson-red and accented by tiny, clean russet dots.  

Excellent Disease Resistance: For backyard growers looking for a lower-maintenance or organic-leaning tree, the Mother apple brings excellent built-in natural resistance to apple scab and mildew, keeping your foliage and fruit remarkably clean.  

A High-Yielding Hardy Bearer: Once the tree matures, it is a vigorous, rugged, and highly dependable producer that handles freezing northern winters with ease.  

Grow a rare masterpiece that grocery stores completely forgot.

If you have limited space in your yard, every tree needs to earn its keep. The Newtown Pippin is the definition of a high-value, all-purpose heirloom that deserves a prime spot in your home orchard.

​Historically famous—George Washington planted them and Thomas Jefferson called them unmatched—this tree isn’t just a museum piece; it’s a backyard grower's dream.

​Why Home Growers Love It:

• ​The "One-Tree Orchard" Apple: Don't have room for separate cider, baking, and fresh-eating varieties? The Newtown Pippin does it all. It boasts a dense crunch for fresh eating, holds its shape perfectly in pies, and packs the complex acidity needed for top-tier hard cider.
• ​The Ultimate Keeper: Late-season harvests mean you’re picking in late October. Best of all, this apple wants to be stored. Keep them in a cool basement or crisper drawer, and over 1–3 months, the starches convert to sugar, transforming a tart green apple into a rich, sweet, highly aromatic winter treat.
• ​Plays Well With Others: A vigorous and reliable grower, it's an excellent candidate for high-density planting or open-vase pruning to keep your fruit within arm's reach.

​Bring American history to your backyard.

The Northwest Greening has one of the great accidental origin stories in American apple history. In 1849, a farmer named Jasen Hatch of Iola, Waupaca County, Wisconsin planted a seed — allegedly a natural cross between the hardy Alexander and the celebrated Golden Russet — and used the resulting seedling as rootstock for another variety. That grafted variety failed and died. The rootstock, left to grow on its own, was nearly forgotten. Then in the 1870s, a neighbor named E.W. Daniels of Auroraville, Wisconsin finally tasted what that overlooked tree had been quietly producing — and immediately recognized something worth sharing with the world. He introduced it commercially in 1872, and by 1900 it was already being grown across the northern United States from Wisconsin to Montana, prized above all else for one thing no other apple could match: toughness.

The Northwest Greening is one of the most cold-hardy apple cultivars ever developed in America, reliably surviving temperatures down to -40°F and beyond — a tree built to outlast winters that would kill lesser varieties outright. In a legendary single-season yield report, one mature Northwest Greening grafted on a semi-standard rootstock produced an astounding 800 pounds of fruit — 20 full bushels — from a single tree in a year when most surrounding trees failed to produce at all. It won first prize at the 1913 Chicago World's Fair, and it has been earning its keep in northern orchards ever since.

The fruit itself is large to very large, pale green ripening to yellow-green, with firm, crisp, juicy yellow flesh and a bright subacid tartness that draws immediate comparisons to Granny Smith fresh off the tree. It is a premier culinary apple — outstanding in pies, sauces, and cider blends — and its flavor deepens and mellows beautifully in storage, where it will keep three months or more in a cool cellar. A late-season harvester ripening in October, it extends your apple season deep into fall and stores well into winter. Moderately resistant to fire blight and cedar apple rust, upright-spreading in habit, and extraordinarily productive once established — the Northwest Greening is a heritage workhorse that earns its place in any serious Pennsylvania orchard.

If you want to grow a true piece of local regional history, the Pittsburgh Pippin is an incredibly rare, hyper-local heirloom that dates back to the early 1800s. Supposedly originating right here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this variety was once a staple of early American homesteads across the state before fading into near-obscurity.

For the backyard orchardist who loves preserving heritage varieties, adding this rugged, frontier-born survivor to your collection gives you ultimate local bragging rights.

Why Home Growers Love It:

The True "Local Heritage" Choice: It was once celebrated in 19th-century agricultural reports as one of Pennsylvania's finest regional fruits. Growing a Pittsburgh Pippin means you are directly participating in saving a rare piece of Western PA agricultural history.

Excellent Fresh and Baking Quality: The fruit grows large to very large with a unique oblate (flattened) and obscurely ribbed shape. Its pale yellow skin hides a dense, crisp, white-tinted-yellow flesh that is remarkably tender, juicy, and intensely aromatic. It’s fantastic fresh or baked into rustic country pies.  

A Sturdy, Reliable Frontier Producer: True to its Western PA survivalist roots, this tree is a robust, reliable bearer. It features a unique, somewhat drooping growth habit with dull reddish-brown, downy young shoots that give it a beautiful, distinct look in the orchard layout.  

Late-Summer to Early-Fall Reward: Ripening throughout August and September, it provides a heavy, satisfying harvest right as the late-summer abundance kicks into high gear.

Bring Western Pennsylvania history back to life in your yard.

The story of the Red Delicious begins in Peru, Iowa, on the farm of a Quaker named Jesse Hiatt. Around 1870, a chance seedling sprouted in his orchard. Because it was growing out of line with his other trees, Hiatt chopped it down. The next spring, it sprang back up. He chopped it down again, and it grew back a third time.  

Admiring the plant's sheer will to live, Hiatt reportedly said, "If thee must grow, thee may," and allowed it to mature. When it finally bore fruit years later, Hiatt sliced it open, took a bite, and told his wife it was the best apple in the world. He named it the Hawkeye.  

What the Original Looked and Tasted Like

If you were to bite into a Hawkeye (the original Red Delicious), you would experience what made the apple famous in the first place:

Appearance: It was not dark, solid red, nor did it have the exaggerated bumpy bottom and elongated shape we see today. The Hawkeye was a rounder apple with a yellow-green base skin, overlaid with pale red and gold stripes.  

Flesh: The flesh was crisp, tender, and yellowish.  

Flavor: It was exceptionally sweet, juicy, and aromatic, with subtle notes of melon. It lacked the tart acidity of many baking apples, making it a near-perfect fresh eating apple.  

What Happened to the Modern Red Delicious?

The old-fashioned Hawkeye was a victim of its own success. Starting in the 1920s and accelerating into the 1950s, commercial growers began discovering genetic mutations (called "sports") on Red Delicious branches. These mutated apples ripened to a deeper, solid red color much earlier in the season and had thicker skins.

Because consumers started "buying with their eyes"—equating a uniform, deep crimson color with the perfect apple—nurseries selectively bred the Red Delicious for its looks, durability in shipping, and long shelf life.  

Unfortunately, the genes that produced the original yellow-and-red striped skin were closely linked to the compounds that produced the apple's incredible flavor. By breeding out the stripes to get a solid red apple, growers accidentally bred out the flavor, leaving us with the bland, mealy, thick-skinned supermarket Red Delicious of today.  

Here is the story and flavor profile of this Lancaster County legend.

What It Looks and Tastes Like

The Smokehouse is the definition of a rustic, old-fashioned farm apple. It doesn't have the high-gloss shine of a modern supermarket variety, but it makes up for it in character and utility.

Appearance: It is a large, slightly flattened, round apple. The skin is a pale yellow-green base, heavily flushed, mottled, and striped with a dull, brick red. It is often covered in small grey or russet dots (lenticels).

Flesh: Inside, the flesh is yellowish-white, very crisp, tender, and incredibly juicy.

Flavor Profile: It has a highly complex, mildly sweet, and pleasantly tart flavor. Many antique apple enthusiasts describe it as having a rich, cider-like taste with very subtle hints of spice.

Best Uses: The Smokehouse is the ultimate all-purpose farm apple. It is fantastic for eating fresh right out of hand, holds its shape well enough for pies and baking, and cooks down beautifully into applesauce. Because of its juicy, complex flavor, it is also highly prized by cider makers.

History and Origins in Pennsylvania

The Smokehouse apple's story begins in the early 1800s (usually cited around 1837) in Lampeter Township, located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

The Seedling by the Smokehouse

The apple originated on the farm of William Gibbons. Much like the Hawkeye (Red Delicious), it was a chance seedling—meaning it grew from a discarded apple core or seed dropped by an animal, rather than being intentionally bred. This particular seedling happened to sprout right next to Gibbons's meat smokehouse.

Instead of pulling the weed-like tree out, Gibbons decided to let it grow. When it finally bore fruit, he discovered that this lucky seedling had produced an exceptionally versatile and flavorful apple.

Spreading Through Pennsylvania

Because it was such a dependable, hardy tree that produced large crops year after year, it quickly became a favorite among the Pennsylvania Dutch and local farmers. By the mid-19th century, it was being widely propagated by nurseries and planted in farmyards across Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

Before the era of specialized agriculture—where farms grew one type of apple for eating and another for baking—families needed a single, reliable apple tree that could do it all. The Smokehouse perfectly fit the bill, cementing its status as an enduring Mid-Atlantic heirloom.

If you think all apples taste the same, Sweet 16 is here to completely change your mind. It is routinely voted one of the most uniquely delicious apples you can grow, packing a complex flavor profile that you will simply never find on a grocery store shelf.

Developed by the University of Minnesota specifically to survive brutal northern winters, this tree doesn’t just endure tough conditions—it thrives, producing heavy crops of crisp, heavily striped red fruit.

Why Home Growers Love It:

A Taste Like No Other: It's a dessert apple with a wild twist. Backyard growers describe the flavor as intensely sweet and aromatic, with distinct, surprising notes of cherry, brown sugar, anise (licorice), and vanilla. It’s an instant conversation starter.

Ironclad Hardiness & Disease Resistance: Bred for cold resilience, it handles freezing winters with ease and exhibits excellent natural resistance to fire blight and apple scab. It's a low-stress, high-reward tree for organic or low-spray backyard setups.

Superb Crisp Texture: The flesh is coarse, cream-colored, and incredibly crisp and juicy. It holds its crunch beautifully right off the tree in mid-to-late September.

Grow the apple they can't buy in stores.

Some apples are grown. The York Imperial was born right here in Pennsylvania — and it changed American orcharding forever. In the early 1820s, Quaker nurseryman Jonathan Jessop of Springwood Farm near York, Pennsylvania noticed something remarkable: children were digging through fallen leaves beneath a wild apple tree on neighboring John Kline's farm in Hellam, pulling out apples that had survived the entire winter and were still perfectly good to eat come spring. Recognizing something extraordinary, Jessop took cuttings from that tree and propagated what would become one of the most celebrated apple varieties in American history. By the 1850s, renowned horticulturist Andrew Jackson Downing dubbed it the "Imperial of Keepers" — and the name York Imperial was born. In 1920, the Pennsylvania State Horticultural Association erected a historical marker honoring the York Imperial for its contributions "to the horticultural prosperity of the state."

More than 200 years later, this Pennsylvania original still delivers everything that made it legendary. It produces medium to large fruit with crisp, juicy, sweet-tart flesh and a characteristic lopsided shape that sets it apart in any orchard. A versatile apple through and through — exceptional for fresh eating, baking, cider, sauce, and drying — the York Imperial only gets better with time, growing sweeter and more mellow the longer it stores. For Pennsylvania growers especially, planting a York Imperial isn't just growing an apple tree. It's carrying on a piece of home state history.