Fall color goes beyond foliage. As the kaleidoscopic show of bright fall tones fade and leaves drift from the trees, the colorful fruits of crabapples take center stage in gardens and landscapes. Previously hidden among the leaves of late summer and autumn, bright fruits persist and carry the show into the winter months.
Ornamental crabapples garner much attention in springtime, when their billowing clouds of fragrant blooms rise above daffodils, tulips and other spring delights. The best cultivars give encore performances throughout the growing season, delivering clean, disease-resistant foliage in summer, rich fall color and bright, long-lasting fruits that linger into winter.
Even when selecting trees for fall fruit display, disease resistance should be your first consideration in choosing ornamental crabapples. Modern cultivars offer improved disease resistance as well as small, persistent fruits that are attractive to birds and extend their ornamental interest into the winter months. Here we share some of our favorites, with other good suggestions on our Crabapple Information Chart. Based on decades of cooperative testing by members of the International Ornamental Crabapple Society and in our own trials, it rates each cultivar for resistance to the common crabapple diseases including scab, fireblight, cedar-apple rust and mildew.
Morton Arboretum, Colorado State University Extension, Missouri Botanical Garden, New York Botanical Garden and Great Plant Picks are examples of good regional resources that will help you select the best performers for your landscape. For a deep dive into all things crabapple, be sure to visit (online or in person) The Ohio State University’s Crablandia, a remarkable collection of ornamental crabapples located at Secrest Arboretum in Wooster, OH. These cultivars are among the finest choices for fall fruit display.
Sparkling Sprite® Crabapple
Malus ‘JFS-KW207’ PP 27954
This unusual cultivar has a unique, densely branched, topiary-like form that lends formality to landscapes. Its branches are smothered in springtime by pink-tinged flowers, and in summer by exceptionally disease-resistant green leaves. This petite beauty bears an especially heavy crop of tiny yellow crabapples that deepen to orange as winter tightens its grip on the garden.
Golden Raindrops® Crabapple
Malus ‘Schmidtcutleaf’
A favorite of robins, cedar waxwings and other birds, its clusters of tiny golden yellow fruits persist into winter, when they sparkle like golden raindrops along bare branches. Elegant and unique among the flowering crabapples, it presents masses of delicate, long-lasting, fragrant, star-like white flowers that are followed by deeply lobed, disease-resistant, deep green foliage. Leaves turn golden yellow in autumn. Zone 3 hardiness recommends it for cold climates.
Raspberry Spear® Crabapple
Malus ‘JFS KW213MX’ PP 31008
Swoon-worthy magenta-pink flowers and purple foliage are multiplied exponentially when viewed on our low-branch form of this remarkable new ornamental crabapple. Blooms and leaves stretch from near ground-level to the tip-top of its narrowly upright branches. Ideal for use in space-challenged, compact landscapes including rooftop gardens, courtyards, container plantings, streetscapes and hedgerows. Its dense foliage makes it a good option for visual screens. Bright flowers attract pollinators, and the dark red, persistent fruit extends the seasonal show into the winter months. USDA Zone 4 hardiness.
Ivory Spear® Crabapple
Malus ‘JFS KW241MX’ PP 31076
As implied by its name, a narrow column of fragrant white flowers juts skyward in spring. Blooms emerge from deep pink buds that cluster along the stiffly upright branches of this unique new ornamental crabapple. Flowers are followed by a uniform column of dark green leaves that remain clean and disease free throughout the summer months. Bright, cherry red fruits of about half-inch diameter add bright contrast when they appear among the leaves in late summer, which turn yellow in autumn. A height and spread of 18′ x7′ assures its suitability for tight growing spaces.
Snow Crystal® Crabapple
Malus ‘JFS KW218MX’ PP 34356
Bright white flowers smother the branches of this densely branched, symmetrical tree in spring. Blooms are followed by dark green leaves that accentuate its distinctively compact, pyramidal form throughout the growing season. Tiny (1/4-inch) yellow to golden orange fruits take the four-season show into the winter months. Bonus reasons to choose this exceptional new cultivar include excellent resistance to the main diseases that affect crabapples, plus a distinctively compact canopy that reaches a height and spread of 15’ x 12’.
Red Jewel™ Crabapple
Malus ‘Jewelcole’
Sparkling red fruits are among the brightest, most profuse and most persistent of any crabapple. In mild winter areas, trees sparkle with bright red fruits for almost half the year, radiating beauty as they provide food for hungry birds. Fruits not eaten last until spring when these four-season beauties burst into bloom with masses of bright white flowers.
These are followed by bright green spring foliage which darkens in summer to a rich green. This cultivar is upright growing and somewhat pyramidal in shape, earning it a place on our UtiliTrees™ list. Upright and pyramidal in shape, this cultivar grows to a height of about 15 feet and a spread of about 12 feet.
Purple Prince Crabapple
Malus ‘Purple Prince’
Leaves emerge in spring with a rich purple tint that warms to bronze green in summer. Rose red blossoms mature to tiny maroon fruits that persist into winter. Easy to misidentify as Prairifire, it has proven over the decades to have better resistance to foliage diseases, more symmetrical form, and speedier growth in the nursery.
Royal Raindrops® Crabapple
Malus ‘JFS-KW5’ PP 14375
Tiny, bright red, persistent fruits sparkle with winter frost and bring winter interest to the garden. Their beauty is fleeting, as they appear to be favored by birds over larger-fruited cultivars.
Springtime brings eye-popping magenta pink blooms to the landscape, followed by purple-tinted leaves that intensify to purple and become deeply lobed as they mature. Their purple color holds well through the summer and into fall, when its colorful fruit takes center stage. Not to be outshone by other purple-foliaged crabapples, Royal Raindrops® sports a medley of bronze-red, purple, orange, gold and yellow tones in autumn.
Firebird® Crabapple
Malus sargentii ‘Select A’
An especially prolific producer of tiny, bright red fruits, this compact, white-flowering selection of Sargent Crabapple blooms heavily in late spring and bears long-lasting, high quality fruit. It is highly rated for excellent resistance to scab, fireblight and other diseases.
Gardeners! Please note that our nursery is strictly wholesale. To purchase these and other trees grown by our nursery, please use our Retailer Locator to find sources of JFS trees near you.
