[angelmum]

Hi I’m a novice in gardening and wanted to try to plant apples in our backyard.

I saw an elstar apple in Aldi and wondering what would be a good pollinator for this? Would discovery apple do as I heard that this variety is lovely too. Any other suggest for nice apple variety ( my husband loves pink lady is there any Irish apple that is close to the taste of pink lady)

Will appreciate any advice

Thanks and regards
Angelmum

[Greengage]

Pink lady is actually a trade name as far as I know. the Apple Cripps Pink was developed in the 1970s by John Cripps in Western Australia, and is a cross between Golden Delicious and Lady Williams. and there are other crosses involved as it is grown in Australia, South Africa and parts of Eastern Europe it can only be grown under licence and it requires certain weather conditions to meet the standard. As for the ones you mentioned if you check here it gives loads of pollinator compatible plants. https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/pollinationchecker.aspx?v=1020
In relation to pollination there is a difference between pollination and fertilisation.
Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male parts to the female parts and fertilisation is where the pollen grain fuses with the ovaries of the female part.
But here is the interesting bit, just because an insect visits your tree does not necessarily mean it pollinates it, your tree may be a male variety only or it may just be a female variety so no matter how much pollen it gathers it will not produce fruit or seed. Pollen from similar plants like your apple tree will not self pollinate although male and female parts are on the same flower. some plants also have separate male and female flowers on the same tree so if an insect just collects pollen from the males it may not visit the female flowers. It is also possible that visiting insects may not come in contact with the reproductive parts of the flowers and some insects are capable of robbing nectar as their proboscis are not long enough. it an interesting subject.
But to get back to your original question I would not be too worried about getting a compatible pollinator for either of your apple trees as there are probably lots growing in the locality that you may not be aware of. it would be a different story if you were growing apples for sale to the market. best of luck with them.