Our Variety Assessment

Its strengths, growing requirements and the conditions in which it performs best.

Belle Fleur Simple is an excellent heritage apple for northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Hardy and suitable for long storage, it produces sweet fruit for both fresh eating and cooking. Its very late blossom makes it a valuable pollinator for other late-flowering cultivars. The apples are less imposing than Belle Fleur Double, but the tree is more versatile for family orchards.

Belle Fleur Simple

Price range: 26,50 € through 59,75 €

A traditional late-season dessert apple with a sweet flavour, and good keeping qualities.

Choose your tree form

1 year old grafted tree – approx. 1–2 m

Half-standard – 1 to 1.5 m stem

Low-stem tree – approx. 60 cm stem

Standard tree – 1.8 m stem and over

Apple rootstock options

Bittenfelder – approx. 6 m mature height

EM9 – approx. 2.5 m mature height

M116 – approx. 4 m mature height

MM111 – approx. 4 m mature height

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Tree size guide

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SKU: 1220 Categories: Apple trees, Eating apple trees

Description

Belle Fleur Simple – widely known as Brabant Bellefleur – was recognised by the English pomologist Robert Hogg, writing in 1884, as “an excellent culinary apple of the finest quality“. It is an attractive apple, usually green with a red flush. The flavour is sweet with some balancing acidity. The apples ripen in mid-October, and have excellent keeping qualities.

Belle Fleur Simple is a very old apple variety, originating from the area of Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, but also found across Belgium and northern France. Like many old apples it goes by numerous names. It remains successful today because it is easy to grow, flowers late to avoid spring frosts, resists most of the common diseases of apples, and is productive.

Variety characteristics

Variety origin

Very old peasant variety from Belgian and Dutch Brabant, long present in old high-stem orchards.

Origin

France

USDA zone

Zone 5 (-29C)

Flowering

6 - very late

Eating / keeping period

5 months

Use

Cooking, Fresh eating

Sweetness / acidity

Disease resistance

Self-fertility

Pollinator value

Ploidy

Origin and identity

Synonyms

Belle-Fleur de Brabant, Brabantse Belle Fleur, Petit Bon Pommier, Simple Bon Pommier, Petite Bonne Ente, Gloire de Flandres

Growth and adaptation

Vigour and habit

Robust, low to medium vigour, slow to come into bearing, tendency to biennial bearing, typical of high-stem orchards but adaptable to weaker rootstocks