This lovely flowering crabapple tree was a gift from an old friend. When I look at it, I have a memory of my dad planting it in our front yard. As a retired union pipefitter, he still wore his work outfits when he worked in the family gardens or his workshop. Green work pants, and long sleeved shirt, or just white tee shirt and his red polka-dotted pipefitter/welder's were the usual daily outfits. But, when he dressed up he was a real snappy dresser, you would never think he ever worked with his hands...until you looked at them! He could fix anything and everything and we all miss him so. He would have loved Nora and Hunter with all his heart.
A flowering crabapple shows off every spring with beautiful blossoms. The trees bloom in white to pink flowers, some with deeply colored almost red flowers. Their leaves appear following the blossom stage
They are early bee food. In spring crabapple trees are abuzz with bumblebees. The blossoms of these flowering trees are a banquet for honey bees. Since the flowering season for crabapples is earlier and longer, it gives those stressed pollinators a reliable food source before berries and other fruit start to leaf out.
Crab apples are so effective at pollinating other apple varieties that old time orchardists would take branches of crab apples in bloom and put them in a bucket of water in the middle of their apple orchards. The bees would visit the crabapple blossoms and then visit the apple blossoms as they opened on the apple trees, improving the fruit set.
For the Record,
This day came in cloudy with a bit of afternoon sun. T's sister has gone back home to New Hampshire today.
I retired from public school teaching after happily spending twenty eight years playing in Kindergarten. Now I fill my days watching cat antics, taking endless...
