Chinese flowering apple

Photo: Jeffrey O. Gustafson — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Grown for centuries in China as an ornamental — the double-flowered forms are among the showiest crabapples in spring. The 2–3cm fruit is bitter and harsh straight off the tree but becomes edible after storing and bletting in a cool dry place.

Hardiness

Zone 4–8

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Sept–Oct

Mature size

Round-headed tree to 9 m tall and as much across

Light

Full sun to light woodland shade

Soil pH

5.5–8.0 (mildly acid to mildly alkaline)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Eastern Asia — Hebei, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Yunnan and Zhejiang, on plains and mountains at 500–2000 m.

Status

Cultivated

Years to fruit

3–5 yrs grafted

Growth speed

30–50 cm/year — medium, building a rounded head roughly as wide as it is tall.

Spacing

600 cm (236 in) apart — about 36 m² (388 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, simple, elliptical to oval, 5–8 cm long, with a finely toothed margin, dark green above and hairy beneath when young.

Root system

Shallow to moderately deep and widely spreading, and in practice largely determined by the rootstock — most nursery plants are grafted rather than on their own roots.

Fruit description

Rounded yellow pomes 2–3 cm across on long stalks, hard and astringent straight off the tree; they need bletting after frost, or cooking, before the flavour is worth anything.

Propagation

Budded or grafted onto apple rootstock — the only way to keep a named double-flowered form true. Seed needs about 90 days cold stratification at 4°C but gives variable seedlings.

Pollination

Insect-pollinated and self-incompatible, like the rest of the genus — needs a second, compatible crabapple or apple flowering at the same time to set fruit. Double-flowered ornamental forms are poor pollen parents and often crop very lightly.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.