Outstanding Features:
Noted for their masses of white to pink or rose flowers. Excellent shows of yellow, orange or red fruit on many cultivars. Those with small fruits provide food for birds.

Description:
Height: 10-30'
Width: 8-20'
Hardiness Zone:

Small trees varying in form depending on the cultivar. Flowers white or pink to rosy red. Fruit yellow to red varying in size from 3/8" to 2". Choose taxa with small persistant fruit to gain the value of the fall season of show. All are very attractive when in flower in the spring. Some have extremely attractive small persistant fruit while others have larger fruit that fall early and create litter. Disease resistance is also an important consideration. Many crabapple cultivars are very susceptible to scab and cedar-apple rust which often cause severe defoliation by late summer and create a very unattractive appearance. Fireblight can also be a severe problem during some seasons on susceptible taxa. The taxa described on the following pages all have good fruit characteristics and reasonably good resistance to the primary diseases that affect crabapples.

Requirements and Culture:
Requires full sun, tolerant to a fairly wide range of soil conditions. Prune to remove suckers and watersprouts. Prune as young trees to develop good branch structure.

Limitations:
Some cultivars very susceptible to scab, rust, fireblight and mildew. No very serious insect problems. Tent caterpillers and cankerworms occasionally defoliate branches.

Selected Cultivars:

Many excellent cultivars are available. Some of these are described on the following pages. Taxa not described, but which are valuable for their hardiness to at least zone 3a are: `Red Splendor', `Pink Spires', `Selkirk', and M. baccata Jackii. Other excellent taxa that are hardy to zone 4 include: `Anne E.', `Jewelberry', Sugar Tyme<sup>TM</sup>, `White Cascade', `Beverly', `Louisa', `Adams', `Indian Magic', `Liset', `Ormiston Roy', `Robinson', `Profusion', `Centurion', and M. floribunda.

Photo Credit:

Minnesota Power | University of Minnesota | Northern States Power Company