realenglishfruit

Top fruit tree growing advice and information from Real English Fruit

Category Archives: Crab apples

A tree for blackbirds

Leave a comment Posted by realenglishfruit on March 18, 2017

At this time of year, blackbirds need an extra source of food. MALUS ROBUSTA is a beautiful wild apple tree, with red berries during the winter months. It is a wonderful tree for the garden. Malus Everest or Malus Royalty are particularly liked by honey bees in the early spring: they are blossom-heavy trees which need special recognition as part of the green movement in our locality. Take a look at our main website for contact details and further information.

Malus robusta, photo courtesy of MPaola Andreoni/flickr.com

Crab apples, The natural environment

Traditional large bush trees

Leave a comment Posted by realenglishfruit on November 22, 2014

Malus John Downie, photo courtesy of Andy/Andrew Fogg/flickr.com

Modern fruit trees are generally grown on a dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstock that keeps their size down to manageable levels and can be grown to produce a fairly flat table at a height convenient for picking without ladders. But you may be interested in growing a traditional old English fruit tree, the sort that grows to an appreciable size and ends up with knarled branches that young children can even climb. An ideal tree for a village green with a good space around the tree to do Maypole-type dancing is the Granny Smith. The fruit hangs on the tree until Christmas without dropping and looks spectacular. However somewhere in a garden nearby there has to be a pollinator… otherwise no fruit!

A much better tree for a very large lawn or a village green is a John Downie crab apple. The fruit looks good and makes wonderful crab apple jelly.

Whatever your tree requirements, don’t hesitate to contact us for more information and on any special needs you have. And, as they say, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, but the next best time is now, so don’t delay!