Crab apples

With foliage, flowers and fruit in a range of colours, there's a crab apple to suit everyone

- GRAHAM RICE

RELATED to roses, crab apples have clusters of spring flowers made up of five, often slightly cupped petals that are followed by small apple-like fruits. Crab apples are distinguished from eating apples and cooking apples by having small fruits with an extremely sour taste.

Although most crab apple trees have unremarkable green foliage, some varieties have purple leaves in spring and summer, making a very effective backdrop for the flowers, while some develop colourful autumn foliage in yellow, orange, gold, red or maroon tones.

The autumn fruits come in yellow, orange, red and almost black, and can provide a spectacle as colourful as the spring flowers.

Crab apples are important for insects and other wildlife, and are valuable in providing a long season of pollen for pollinating culinary apples.

Planting and care

1 Choose a sunny site, or one with a little shade, and soil that is neither parched nor waterlogged. Crab apples do not require any special treatment. Plants in containers can be planted at any time from autumn to spring, whenever the ground is not waterlogged or frozen. Bare-root trees can be planted in a narrower window from late autumn to early spring.

2 You can plant containerised crab apples at any time. Water well, and mulch. Be prepared to irrigate if necessary in the first year.

3 Support is important. A 4ft (1.2m) tree stake knocked in at an angle, with the tree tied to its stake about 2ft (60cm) above the ground, is ideal.