Laxton's Favorite Apple (Spring 2027)

This is the first year we’ve grown Laxton’s Favorite. We got scionwood from Tim Makepeace in spring 2025 and grafted it because we wanted a proven, Cox-style dessert apple with real historical pedigree and excellent fresh-eating quality, while also testing how far a classic English apple can be pushed in Montana’s colder, drier climate. Because we have not yet tasted the fruit or observed its long-term behavior under Montana conditions, the information below is secondhand and drawn from reputable references.

Overview

Laxton’s Favorite is an English dessert apple raised by Laxton Bros. in Bedford in 1925 and introduced in 1951. Its documented parentage is Cox’s Orange Pippin × Laxton’s Exquisite (sometimes listed simply as Cox’s Orange Pippin × Exquisite).

Fruit Quality & Uses

Laxton’s Favorite is a sweet, crisp, juicy dessert apple. Multiple references describe the flesh as coarse-grained but pleasantly crisp and sweet, and it’s typically treated as a fresh-eating apple first and foremost.

Growth Habit & Spacing

We're currently offering this on Bud 118 semi-standard rootstock so a practical spacing is about 15 feet apart, and up to 18 feet if you want more airflow and less pruning pressure over time.

Cold Hardiness

In an extensive search, we did not find a reliable, cultivar-specific reference that documents a precise “survived down to −X °F” mid-winter minimum for Laxton’s Favorite, the way some North American apples are sometimes documented in trial reports. Most authoritative cultivar records focus on origin, parentage, bloom group, and fruit qualities rather than a tested minimum temperature.

So, for Montana, we think the conservative approach is the right one: treat Laxton’s Favorite as a Zone 3b/4-ish “try it with some protection and good site choice” apple rather than assuming it’s an extreme-cold survivor. All of the English apples we have grown have survived -30°F without any issues. So that is likely the case with Laxton's Favorite, and it likely could survive -35°F or possibly even -40°F, if well-sited out of frost pooling areas/on a bench, although this is speculative. In other words: it may do well in much of western Montana (especially the Bitterroot, Missoula-area pockets, and warmer bench sites), but we would not treat it as a go-to for the colder, windier parts of eastern Montana without a favorable microclimate.

Pollination

Laxton’s Favorite is listed as flowering period/pollination group C in UK references (roughly mid-season bloom), so it should be pollenized by many mid-bloom apples.

From the apples currently listed on our site, good potential pollenizers to pair nearby (this list is not exhaustive) include mid-bloom, widely compatible types such as Honeycrisp, Zestar!, Liberty, McIntosh-types, and many crabapples/crab hybrids that overlap bloom.

Ripening Time

In UK references, Laxton’s Favorite is typically picked in late August and used September–October. In Montana, that likely translates to a mid-September ripening window in warmer sites, with timing sliding later in cooler valleys.

Other Notable Characteristics

Because Laxton’s Favorite is closely tied to the Cox line, it’s often grown specifically for that aromatic dessert-apple character, but, as with many Cox-family apples, performance can be quite site-dependent. For Montana, good airflow, thoughtful pruning, and a reasonably warm ripening window will matter a lot for fruit quality and disease pressure.

Image courtesy of East Of England Apples and Orchard Project