The sibling to Clarks crabapple is just starting to fall and today is Nov 1st. That is very handy to have another late ripening apple. The flavor is just now getting good.
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I figured I’d post this here.
We have a rental property in an older part of town. Very urban. I saw this tree last year, it’s a street tree. In a street lawn in front of the neighbors rental property. So probably not planted by a resident. It looked like a Christmas decoration with yellow apples. It was absolutely loaded. Hard to miss. I made a note to check it out this summer/fall.
I forgot about it but had to do some repairs to handrailings yesterday and remembered it, and I walked down to look at it. It was past prime and I could reach some still hanging fruits. Most of low hangers were gone, but I could reach a few left over up high around 8’ . I’m 6’2" and clearly people have been enjoying them, just shorter people.
They were a little smaller this year than I remember, maybe due to drought. They get zero care. They were really tasty and unique.
They had a street arboritum project a few years ago, so there are all sorts of different trees planted in the neighborhood so I thought I could find what tree was supposed to be planted there, but the key map was very poor. Even had the streets wrong.
I thought of this tread, but the chances someone planted Clarks crab is so slim. I grew thousands of of crabapples. All ornamental varieties and it was none of them. The arboretum aspect is the only reason I thought of it. They planted natives and species trees.
The tree has lots of spurs and brushy type branches. Kinda of bushy and multi stem. Its not a large vigorous tree. The apples did have some pink blush to them.
I think it may be an antonovka escaped rootstock. I haven’t seen a lot of trees offered on it lately. I have a friend who grafts a lot for commercial producers and he use to use it. 30 years ago. Lawyer nursery used to sell it, but they went out of business about 10-15 years ago. My research also said antonovka has white flesh, these are definitely not what I’d call white.
I have Clarks scionwood ordered for next year. I’m thinking of cutting some scions from this tree for next year. They were so tasty and unique.
Any thoughts? I figure this was the best place to ask.
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No guess, but just wanted to state that St. Lawrence Nursery grafted the vast majority of their trees to Antonovka for decades.
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A tiny Clark’s crab grafted onto pacific crab. Deer ate off a lot of the scion leaves when someone left the gate open, but it grew some new leaves. I thought the contrast of Clark’s fall color against the pacific crab was nice.
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Strange. Today I notice both of my Clarks put on some growth during the last few weeks cooler temps. I thought the Bud10 was done for the year.
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Is Clark’s Crab a good pollinator, or better stated, does it have the extended bloom time that a lot of crabs have?
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An observation I found interesting…I topworked CC to 2 different wild trees this spring. I got multiple takes on each, and anywhere from 1’-3’ of growth. The “interesting” part (to me) is that the grafts on one tree have all lost their leaves and on the other the leaves are still nearly green.
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