Bud 9 makes a rather attractive flower as well as the foliage.
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Hope it develops fruit from my one cluster of flowers.
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I wonder if they have the red flowers for the same reason that some peach rootstocks are purple-leaf peaches: you can detect the errant rootstock sprouts from a distance.
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They have red fleshed apples no doubt. Anyone know if they are any good? If they are I may let one of my rootstocks just grow into a tree if any grafts fail.
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Did you end up tasting it?
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I did taste it but I’m having trouble remembering what it was like. Nothing special and I think it was tart.
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I have a patch in my yard where I cut down and ground out a flowering crab. I think what comes up there is B9. I let it set fruit once.
As I recall, the fruit had no particular flavor.
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As i recall the red streaks are in the rootstock when you graft to it. Seems i had this conversation with @39thparallel years ago.
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@CRhode I kind of doubt it’s Bud 9. I think the foliage would be redder on B-9. B-9 would be a weak choice for crabapple. They often use Standard size tree as a rootstock for ornamental crabs.
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You don’t have over 100 Budagovsky roots I don’t suppose.
Since all my B-9 root grafts took, I haven’t let one grow up to bloom. and fruit, but, I can well imagine it looks like the pix CRhode posted.
But, tis true, if you think of a tree big as a maple tree for a flowering crab ….then B-9 would be more for a big planter on the porch sort of decorative crab.
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I probably have about 50 each B9, M26, G41 at this time.
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Ok. The point I thought worth mentioning was that the mature summer growth of these red fleshed apples is nowhere near as red/plum colored in summer as when they first leaf out.
I have 30 red fleshed apples, plus B9, B10 and B118 roots. 50 new this year, plus those of previous seasons. None have leaves as red as some of the red crab apples grown commercially for landscaping.
B9 barely looks red at all wwhen it stops growing for the year and the leaves mature…new growth is very plum/wine colored.
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That’s a good point. I got used to the red leaves watching them break dormancy.
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B118 is probably a shade more colored than B9, and I grafted 10 of B10 this spring, but since all the grafts took, not had a lot of growth from the rootstock in the way of side shoots. So, I’ll have to look next time.
Actually, I have one failing. 10 for 10 on B-10 But only 9 for 10 on B9…and I have bright burgundy leaves coming from below the graft.
(But, still, I doubt it’s redder than B118). I was already intending to let one B118 grow to bloom. Might should try with B9 also.
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… don’t know for sure.
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Well, the flowering crab I cut down was pretty but not much bigger than the dwarf culinary apple trees that replaced it. It didn’t look good in its final years. I think now all it needed was water. (I live on a sand dune.) I irrigate my orchard nowadays.
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Bud 9 and 118 are Red leafed, maybe that’s M111?
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You don’t think those leaves are red?