To reduce or not to reduce? (crabapple)

[Kiani]

lol ur right I think you do in deed have a pink on .... for some reason I must have missed it before....

theoretically you could graft branches of a white flowering crab on a pink flowering crab... similar to how quinces are grafted.... might be interesting ....

Yeah would be interesting, but that's a few years down the road. I have no idea how to graft yet.

I have 2 questions if anyone can help me.

1) It's now early spring, my crab has just started to bloom with around 4-5 flowers. When would be the best time to air layer the branch I want to remove? Graham Potter mentioned in his air layering tutorial that early spring is best, just as the buds start to open up, which is right about now.

2) I have buds all over the tree with 4-5 which have opened up producing pinkish flowers, but as of yet there are no leaves at all on the tree. Is this normal to have flowers before leaves on a crabapple?

 

[Caddis]

Kiani,

I also live in Orange County and bought a crab apple last week end from what is probably the same nursery.. I walked the crab apple patch for quite awhile and finally made a choice based on the foundation of the trunk movement. We dug it up and went to pot it in the workshop at the nursery where a Korean Bonsai Master who was visiting from Korea was working on some Junipers. I could see him watching out of the corner of his eye as as I pruned the 6' tree down to about where your tree is now. While he spoke absolutely no English and I no Korean, he was able to convince me through white board drawings and hand motions to cut the tree down to to a simple trunk line with no branches at all. I will post a photo for your review. By the way, do you know what cultivar your tree is?

 

[Caddis]

The tree as is is about 12 inches tall.

 

[Caddis]

maybe a larger photo?

 

[Caddis]

I am jealous that you are going to be having flowers this year and I am hoping to see some a year from now!

 

[edprocoat]

I read this whole threa and was also wondering what cultivar of crab you have, the reason I ask is that I want a crab. I go to Florida in the winter months and I always see that crabs need 40-60 days ( depending on the source ) of 30 degree weather to be dormant or the tree will be stressed and possibly die. I know, or think at least, that your being in S. California that this is not the case, at least with your cultivar. I have searched many sites with graphical ranges for crabs, one was a USDA site and none showed California or Florida, on one cultivar called Southern crabapple the graphic showed it down as far as N. Georgia. How is your crab fairing and could you post its name, I really wanted a Sargeants Crab as they seem to be the most disease resistant.

ed