Is a flowering crabapple a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Flowering Crabapple can work here, with caveats. Ubiquitous in central Indiana neighborhoods built from the 1970s through the 2000s, and a large share of those are unnamed, scab-susceptible seedling stock now hitting the end of their good years. Newer disease-resistant cultivars are going back in as Callery pear falls out of favor, so the same yard often has a failing old crab and a young replacement.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Fruit size decides everything. Small-fruited modern cultivars under half an inch hold their fruit through winter and get cleaned up by birds, while the large-fruited older cultivars in 1970s-90s subdivisions carpet the drive in October, ferment, stain concrete, draw wasps and get tracked indoors — layered on top of the annual scab leaf drop in midsummer.
Where to keep it away from
Nearly every landscape crabapple is grafted, so the root system is a different plant than the top — sprouts from below the graft union come back with different leaves and different flowers, and they have to be cut flush at the origin rather than headed back or they multiply. The roots themselves are shallow and fibrous in clay and rarely bother hardscape, but that shallow flare gets chewed up by string trimmers and mower decks, and that damage is a common hidden cause of a stalled-out crabapple.
Related
- How much does it cost to remove a flowering crabapple?→
- Should I remove or save my flowering crabapple?→
- When should a flowering crabapple be pruned?→
- Are flowering crabapple roots a problem for foundations or pipes?→
- Is my flowering crabapple dying or just stressed?→
- How much does it cost to remove an american basswood?→
- Should I remove or save my american basswood?→
- When should an american basswood be pruned?→