I have a few apple seedlings that I’ve been growing in my office over the past few months. They are doing very well but the time is quickly approaching where they should be going dormant.
My question is how long will they need in an unheated sunroom (north side of my home so “shaderoom” is a better descriptor) in order for them to harden off? Most of my outdoor trees hold their leaves well into December so I’m assuming that I can hold off on moving them until early October.
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Wow! Good luck they are a real promiss! 
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I’ve been letting the seedlings fend for themselves. Most seem to make it outdoors, except maybe a couple a fox or squirrel dig up.
I ended up moving my office seedlings out for the winter. Spring will tell if I held them in for too long. This was their state before heading outside for the season.
I ended up bringing another in because its been fighting powdery mildew for months and I didn’t think it had built enough stores to weather the cold months. I should just let it die given its predisposition to PM but I like the leaf color enough that I’m putting in the extra effort to see it through the winter. Once I get it back outside it will be “in god’s hands” as it were.
Summer Open Pollenated:
Pre this weeks PM treatment:
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Do you have ID of the mother? A crab apple? (The purple leafed one.)
Sadly not. It was one of S. Edholm’s seeds. Summer Open Pollinated is all I have on it. Pretty though.
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Consider it as possibly a seedling from Maypole…in that case.
But 'tis only a guess.
Hopefully by late summer I’ll have a lot of seeds from Odysso and Niedz…but probably not too many at this point but that I’ll plant them myself. Once I get 3 dozen or more red fleshed apples actually fruiting…I’ll probably have open pollinated red fleshed seeds out the vvazzoooo.
I don’t have a guess on the parentage. I think I’ve seen people say that some rootstock sport the dark pigments in addition to a lot of red fleshed varieties. Most of what I have from the last round of seedlings are wickson crosses. The pictured seedling was one of the few summer opens to make it through the summer (barely).
I have one black oxford seed that I’m sprouting out now and a good number of open pollenated seeds from the last round of Edholm seeds. I’m running out of room but obsessive hobbies being what they are I’ll grow out more than I can bring to fruit and whittle them back from there.
Are you keeping yours on their own roots?