# About Flowering Crabapple Trees
There is a crabapple matched to nearly every landscape. Cascading forms like Red Jade (Malus 'Red Jade') add elegance and drama, while the small, upright Sargent crabapple (M. sargentii) suits patios and small gardens. If your garden needs a touch of spring flower, summer form and fall color, a crabapple may fit the bill.
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Characteristics
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Crabapple blossoms are often large and showy. Crabapples vary in size and form, depending on the cultivar. Smaller crabapples remain just 6 feet tall, while others may reach nearly 40 feet. Most, however, range between 15 and 25 feet tall. Forms include weeping, cascading or upright branch structures. Crabapples are more limited in their flower color, which includes white, pink or red, and the flowers may be single, semidouble or double. Fall color is often striking, brightening the landscape with shades of gold, orange or red.
Culture
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Crabapple trees are hardy to USDA Zone 3 and adapt to many soil conditions. While they tolerate limited drought, they prefer reliable moisture and rich, well-drained soil. Boggy, wet conditions are an invitation to root rot and fungal diseases. They prefer at least 8 hours of sunlight; do not plant this ornamental tree in shade. Crabapples are fairly low-maintenance and do not need supplemental fertilization in average soils. Prune them in February through April, before they break dormancy, to remove rubbing branches or rogue sprouts.
Problems
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Fire blight affects many flowering trees, and older crabapple varieties may not have resistance to this bacterial disease. Watch for tan, seeping liquid from infected twigs in spring. Remove infected branches 8 to 12 inches below the infected site, and clean your tools with a 10 percent bleach solution after each use. Apple scab, a fungal disease, causes raised blemishes on fruit and dark green areas on leaves. Control apple scab with a fungicide.
Varieties
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Crabapple fruit are often as showy as the flowers. Growers have developed more than 700 varieties of crabapple, but only a handful are generally available. The cascading Molten Lava has white flowers followed by bright golden fruit. It grows 8 to 10 feet tall, has vibrant fall color and is generally disease resistant. The 20-foot-tall Prairiefire has glossy mahogany bark and showy red flowers followed with red fruit. Snowdrift lives up to its name with plentiful white flowers from the end of April through the beginning of May.
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