MORE ON APPLES AND CRABAPPLES

DWARF APPLE TREE GROWN ON TRELLIS

BAYFIED APPLE ORCHARD IN BLOOM

A CLASSICALLY PRUNED APPLE TREE...AN ORCHARDIST'S WORK OF ART

DWARF SEARGANT'S CRABAPPLE

Sunday,  9:30 AM.  56 degrees F, wind NE, gusty at times.  The humidity has fallen to 62% and the barometer has peaked at 30.14" and begun to trend downward.  Our total rainfall from the last rainy period was 1.26".
   Buddy and I went to the beach this morning so he could get a good run.  We brought back a lot of mosquito bites and a few ticks, but also some interesting photos for tomorrow's blog post.  It will be a beautiful afternoon for our spring Open House at Bayfield's historic Christ Episcopal Church.
  Continuing yesterday's discussion of apples and crabapples:  the Bayfield apple orchards are just now starting to bloom, are beautiful but need another warm day or two to be at their peak.  Several of the newer orchards grow a significant number of their trees on wire trellises, as espaliers.  These are dwarf apple trees, grown on dwarfing root stocks that limit the size of the tree.  That is also a good way to grow apples and other fruit trees on the small property, either on a fence or on a trellis against a sunny wall.
   In fact, literally all commercial apple trees are now grown grafted onto dwarfing root stocks.  This is done to limit the size of the trees and make the fruit easier to pick and the trees easier to prune.  Standard size apple trees can become huge trees, more than forty feet tall and almost as wide.  Un-pruned and standard size apple trees are extremely difficult and expensive to grow, prune, spray and harvest.
   One of the oldest and best dwarf crabapples is Seargant's crabapple.  It will grow only to about twelve feet in height and about the same width.  It has good disease resistance, and attractive flowers and fruit.