Round the Year with Crab Apples
Are you looking for a small ornamental tree with attractive flowers and colorful fruits for your home garden? Do you want a tree with a distinctive growth habit that is relatively free from insect pests and diseases? If so, you might well consider the crab apples, whose delicate blossoms, decorative fruits and grace of habit place them among the most popular of spring flowering trees.
Of the many kinds of crabs, the Japanese flowering or showy crab apple (Malus floribunda) is without question one of the oldest as well as most widely planted. A round, densely branching tree, its deep carmine buds open to fragrant pink flowers, which finally fade to white. Its fruits are a rich lustrous red or yellow. A striking characteristic is the low, mound-like habit and the flower covered branches bending gracefully to the ground.
Useful for the small garden is the tea crab (M. hupehensis), a distinctive little tree which is picturesque throughout the year. It is vase-shaped, with long, single branches reaching out like the ribs of a fan. Fragrant pink flowers, which open from deep pink buds, are followed by a profusion of small yellow fruits with red cheeks.
Outstanding for its mass of single brilliant carmine flowers, followed by small red fruits, is the carmine crab (M. astrosanguinea). A wide-spreading, shrub-like tree, 15-20 feet high, it is ideal for a small area or for contrast, when planted near white flowering varieties.
The arnold crab (M. floribunda arnoldiana) is another lovely small tree, which has a broad, rounded crown, about 20 feet high. On long, arching branches are borne large, pendulous, semi-double pink blossoms, fading to white. These are followed by attractive yellow fruits with red cheeks.
Parkman’s crab (M. halliana parkmani) is a pink, semi-double blooming variety, with purplish-red fruit. Suit-able for small gardens, it grows 15 feet high, and has dark green glossy foliage. It is not so hardy as other crab apples.
A low growing, densely branching candidate, usually attaining six to eight feet, is the sargent crab (M. sargenti), producing large, fragrant white single blossoms, with bright yellow anthers and purple-red, long-persistent fruits. The foliage of this kind takes on a bright orange to orange-red autumn color.
For color contrast in the home planting, the striking bronzy red foliage of the aldenham purple crab apple (M. purpurea aldenhamensis) must be considered. This is a tree that the small homeowner should grow for its foliage, which is dark reddish green, deeper when it first unfolds. The semi-double flowers are a purplish-red, followed by fruit of a similar color.
Some of the newer crab varieties include a many-branched, shrub-like plant, with lovely pale pink to white double blossoms borne in abundance, followed by yellow and red fruits. An increasingly popular variety produces rose-pink blooms and yellow fruits persisting to early winter. Bob White, a sport of the Japanese crab apple, a round, densely branched tree, produces fragrant pink buds, which open and fade to a white. The yellow fruits remain all winter.
One of the loveliest, Van Eseltine, a hybrid of the Chinese double crab (M. spectabilis), has deep pink semi-double flowers and red fruits. The most brilliant red crab is the Crimson Bril-liant, whose branches are covered with bright red semi-double blooms. When mature, this tree is about 15 feet tall, making it another excellent choice for small properties. The fruit is purple-red.
Since spring generally finds the gardener with an over abundance of work, and is very often wet and cold for long periods, fall is becoming more and more a season for planting many shrubs and trees. Therefore, at this time, crab apples may be planted with safety, if proper cultural practices are followed. Planting a crab apple is simple, but certain details, which include soil, water, drainage as well as guying and mulching, should be considered.
The holes for planting should be well prepared and dug deep and wide enough so that the roots are not crowded. Any roots that are broken or bruised, while planting, should be cut with a sharp knife or pruning shears in order to make a clean cut. If the soil needs improvement, humus, or peatmoss, and sand, if it is a clay soil, should be mixed with topsoil, and also spaded into the subsoil. Leave a depression of two inches below the ground level, after the plant has been set in the hole and covered with soil, to hold water during the first year. During and after planting, water well.
Guying is of prime importance, in the transplanting of a crab apple or any other tree, as this type of support helps to prevent the roots from loosening until they become firmly established. Near the first branches, stretch three tight guy wires fastened to stakes, four to five feet from the trunk, driven firmly in the ground. These guy wires should remain tightly fastened on the tree during the first two years, to allow the tree to become established.
Crabs that are transplanted in the fall are benefited by a mulch to con-serve moisture and to prevent rapid changes in soil temperatures during the winter.
Foolproof on the Whole
On the whole, crabs are troubled by a few insects and diseases, and for this reason are highly recommended for general planting. Aphids, sometime serious, may be checked with a contact spray, such as malathion.
If apple tree borers are present, spray the trunk and lower branches with Malathion during the summer. Not very serious is scale, which should be sprayed with a horticultural oil spray in early spring.
If junipers or red cedars are nearby, leaf-spotting will result from cedar apple rust, a fungus disease. Crabs, like hawthorns, act as an alternate host for this disease. Spraying both hosts will keep this rust in check, though another method is to eliminate any junipers near by.
by R Wyman
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