CRABAPPLES DESERVE SOME APPLEFEST RECOGNITION TOO.

CRABAPPLE ON 9TH AND MANYPENNY AVE. WITH BEAUTIFUL FRUIT...

...BRANCHES HAVILY LADEN...

..WITH .MARBLE SIZED CRABAPPLES

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  56 degrees F, wind W, calm with occasional light gusts.  The sky is overcast and everything is damp.  The humidity is 93% and the barometer is heading downward, currently at 29.85".

   More rain is predicted by late afternoon, and hopefully it will hold off until we (Jay's Tree Service and I) get the last planting job of the season in, a dozen trees for a customer on Chequamegon Road on the lakeshore.  Applefest will have to fend for itself.

   With all the Applefest  hoopla, I would be remiss not to mention crabapples, the diminutive close relatives of the edible apple,  Malus domestica.  Both apples and crabapples are in the genus Malus,in the rose family, and are so genetically similar that crabapples are used by orchards as pollinators to ensure that there is a good apple crop.  Pollination by crabapples does not affect the characteristics of the fruit of the edible apple varieties.  

   There are a few crabapples, such as the old 'Whitney' variety,  that bear fruit large enough and sweet enough to be suitable for eating out of hand or for preserves, but by and large the crabapple fruits are too small and sour to be useful.

   Crabapples are very important landscape shrubs and small trees. There are species of crabapples native to most temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, and they hybridize easily among themselves;  consequently there are numerous crabapple varieties in the nursery trade, of almost every size, shape,  fruit (shades of red, purple, yellow) and flower (white, red, pink) charasteristic imaginable, far too many for me to delve into in a blog post.  About all I can do is make note of some I think are worthwhile from time to time, and try not to confuse the issue.

   I don't know the name of the crabapple in the photo, and it doesn't help matters to guess.  Suffice it to say that the crabapples deserve some Applefest recognition too.