I first heard of these apples at a "pick your own" orchard. I fell in love! They have a sort of bland appearance with almost a brown/gold/red color. Hard and crisp and tart, these are the perfect apples! They are only slightly smaller than "regular' apples. Just a few months ago, we added one of these to our yard. It actually flowered this year, but there was nothing else flowering to pollinate the blooms. On that note, it is not a self-pollinator. You will need another crabapple that flowers at the same time. I was informed that my neighborhood "probably" has someone with an appropriate tree and I shouldn't worry about it, but we'll see.

Almost as soon as the tree had leaves, it had aphids. I've checked it a couple times every day squishing aphids and it seems to be rid of them now. That would be harder when it is larger with more leaves. I've also wrapped the trunk with tree wrap and put tanglefoot on that to stop the ants from transporting the aphids. That may have helped more than squishing.

One thing - when you are planting your bare stock in the ground, make sure you do NOT put dirt over the graft scar. The tree I have is a "dwarf" tree because it is grafted onto dwarf root stock. If you put dirt over the graft scar, the actual chestnut crabapple tree will be able to put down roots and the root stock won't be able to control the growth anymore.

Reply to this comment