GrowingHQ

Moorpark

The traditional British apricot, grown against a south wall since the eighteenth century. Old, and still the reference point — the risk is entirely in the timing of its blossom.

A cultivar of Apricot. Everything on this page is about the cultivar; how to grow the species is on the plant page, and how big the tree gets is on the rootstock page.

Names and origin

Origin
England, 18th century

Pollination

What this cultivar needs before it will set a crop.

Self-fertility
Self-fertile
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot pollination

Checked 2026-08-13

Partner
No partner needed
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot pollination

Checked 2026-08-13

Ploidy
diploid
source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

  • NIAB — National Institute of Agricultural Botany: Cultivar ploidy records

Checked 2026-08-13

Partners needed
none

What that means in practice

Self-fertile, and flowering earlier than almost anything else in the garden. Frost protection over the blossom and hand pollination are what decide whether there is a crop.

Partners for Moorpark, from the 2 apricot cultivars GrowingHQ holds

Computed by the pollination engine from the flowering groups, ploidy and recorded pairings on each record — not a hand-written list. The scope is exactly what the heading says: these are the answers that exist in this catalogue, not the answers that exist.

No partner is required

Moorpark sets a crop on its own pollen. The table below is still computed, because a compatible neighbour does no harm and a grower planting two trees may want to know which pairs work.

No compatible partner in this catalogue

That is a statement about GrowingHQ’s coverage rather than about the cultivar. A nursery list will contain compatible cultivars this catalogue does not hold — the pollination mechanisms page explains how to work one out.

1 further cultivar returns no verdict, because a flowering group or an incompatibility group is not recorded on one side. The engine reports that rather than assuming a value: Flavorcot.

The fruit

Season
Mid-season
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot cultivars — season

Checked 2026-08-13

Use
Eating, Preserving
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot cultivars — use

Checked 2026-08-13

Keeping
Eat within days
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot cultivars — storage

Checked 2026-08-13

The plant

Vigour
Average vigour
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot cultivars — vigour

Checked 2026-08-13

Habit
Spreading
source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot cultivars — habit

Checked 2026-08-13

Cropping
Tends to biennial bearing
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot cultivars — cropping

Checked 2026-08-13

Frost risk at flowering
high
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

The blossom, not the tree. A mature apricot survives a British winter comfortably; its flowers do not survive a March frost.

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Apricot — blossom and frost

Checked 2026-08-13

A barren year may be normal here

This cultivar tends to crop heavily one year and lightly the next. A poor year following a heavy one is the habit rather than a fault, and thinning the fruit in the heavy year is the usual way to even it out.

Cultivar record reviewed 2026-08-13.