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Ornamental Crab Apple Trees.
Ornamental Crab Apple Trees.
Mother wasn’t a domestic goddess. However, due to the era she was born into, domesticity became her lot in life following marriage. The kitchen was the last place she wanted to spend time in, and cooking was her most loathed chore. But throughout our childhood she always managed to produce simple, healthy meals every day. Mum would rather have kept her job working at the Herbarium at Kew Gardens, and spent her free time gardening, reading, sketching, travelling, visiting museums and galleries, attending classical concerts, or taking evening classes. But instead, she cooked and cleaned, did the shopping, the laundry, and all the other duties required of a housewife, all the while longing for the life she led when single. That is why the rare occasions on which she cooked for pleasure stand out in my memory.
Looking up at the maze of vapour trails scrawled in the brilliant blue sky this afternoon reminds me of one such October Saturday long ago. The weather was the same and I see her coming in from the garden with a colander full of luscious red crab apples. So that was why mother had dragged out the kitchen stool with the folding steps! ‘I’m going to make some crab apple jelly’, mum announced. I don’t remember where my brother and sister had got to, but I wanted to be involved. My first task was to wash the small apples and pick out any duds, while she looked up the recipe her mother had written out for her. Then I was instructed to top and tail them, cutting off the stem and blossom ends using her black-handled Kitchen Devils paring knife that I still use today. I remember biting into one of the hard fruits and being surprised by its astringent juices. We were ready to begin. While the boiling was going on I was sent to retrieve a large empty glass jar from the pantry, a vessel that had once held Robertson’s mincemeat, and to place a stack of saucers into the fridge to chill. For me it was fun, although I must have lost interest in the long process because by the time mum was using a wooden spoon to push the cooked pulp through a sieve I was watching television. I remember hearing her tired voice calling from the kitchen for me to come and measure out an equal volume of sugar to the juice. And ten minutes later, telling me to fetch the chilled saucers. The setting test so simple; a teaspoon of sweet sunshine dropped onto an icy saucer. Pushing it with my finger I could see it wrinkle and hold its shape. ‘It’s ready to decant’, mum said. By the time dad returned with my siblings everything had been cleaned and put away. As I sat staring into the amber depths of the slowly cooling jar of crab apple jelly mum said wearily, ‘it isn’t worth the palaver’. She said this every year, always just after we had finished.
That jar of crab apple jelly has long since been consumed, and the crooked tree with its gnarled trunk encrusted with grey lichen was chopped down when dad added an extension to the rear of the house. I remember mum crying as the tree was felled because our Siberian crab apple tree (Malus baccata) had been planted by her sister and brother-in-law when they had lived in the house in the early1960s. But the memory of that tree and the taste and texture of the delicious crab apple jelly we made from its fruits remains. I know I’m not alone. It’s not an uncommon memory for people to have when crab apples are mentioned: ‘my mother used to make jelly out of crab apples’, or ‘aren’t those the trees with the sour little fruits my grandmother used to make into jam?’.
Their common name does them no favours. Ornamental crab apple tree is a much better label for them. Besides their autumn bounty, crab apple trees make a valuable addition to any garden. Their spectacular spring blossom, which generally appears at the start of April, comes in a range of colours including white, pink, red and purplish red. Most crab apples have single flowers, but semi-double and double flowered varieties can be found. The flowers are popular with bees and other insects searching for early pollen, and it is a valuable pollinator tree for domesticated apples that are self-sterile flowering at the same time. Their neat foliage comes in a range of greens and reds. It looks good during the growing season, providing privacy and dappled shade. After the leaves and fruits have provided autumn interest their attractive bark and twisted branches provide winter interest. Crab apples are eaten by birds in the winter that disperse their seeds, and the fallen fruits are a food source for small mammals like hedgehogs. Their all-round interest makes them a garden tree for all seasons.
Despite making great trees for family gardens, crab apples are not as popular as they used to be. This is a shame. All of us should plant a tree if we get the opportunity to. A compact crab apple will repay you with flowers, fruits, shade and beauty of form. Mum died several years ago. When I felt ready to plant a tree in her memory the decision was an easy one, it had to be a crab apple. And I made some crab apple jelly from the fruits this year, although it isn’t worth the palaver.
Further reading:
Learn how to make the perfect crab apple jelly here
Watch Monty plant a crab apple tree
October to April is the best to plant a tree in your garden. To learn how to plant a tree read our blog:
