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Crabapple Tree Care

Crabapple Tree Health Care

Crabapple trees are a popular ornamental due to a beautiful flowering that trumpets the spring. Drought tolerance is an important benefit to choosing a crabapple for your lawn. The fruit is smaller than apple trees and has a bitter taste. Also, it can be a pain to clean up in high traffic area.

A flowering crabapple in your yard provides bright colored fruit, which will attract birds. A sterile crab hybrid will not bear fruit making a goof choice close to sidewalks. Crabapples are hardy trees, but are prone to common diseases such as apple scab and fire blight. Fireblight is a chronic bacteria that we control with a tree IV systemic treatment called Arborjet which holds off the blight until we can trim off the blighted branches.

Don't eat the fruit of a tree you don't know the history of. A crabapple ( or any fruit tree) may be treated with Merit, orthene or other chemicals that can poison the fruit for a season or more!

Crabapple Tree Trimming

We recommend trimming crabapples during the dormant season (January and February) because of the high incidence of fire blight in the Denver area. Trimming when dormant makes sure that infected branches don't release the bacterial agent into the air and find another host tree, typically rose, pear, or another crabapple. Improper pruning especially in fall could strip away too many dormant buds which may lessen foliage the next year.