 |
Malus |
 |
| | Buds encircle the single open blossom like satellites |
| Common name |
apple |
| Family |
rosaceae |
| Life cycle |
tree |
| Flowers |
white/pink (spring) |
| Light |
sun |
Our orchard boasts three apple trees. Well, maybe boast is the wrong word - we've never had a real crop. Apples are clearly not my forte. First, there's the "dwarf" Granny Smith, which towers high over everything in the orchard. The huge tree produces a few apples every year; they're too sparse and high up to bother with, and usually misshapen, so they are eventually enjoyed by the wasps. Then there's the Red Delicious - this really is a dwarf, and a nice little tree in spring. Then it makes its mostly mealy red apples abundantly, but the worms get to them before we do. One of these days I'll remember to put out those apple maggot lures in early spring... Finally, the newest entry into our apple inventory is a Royal Gala, also a dwarf. And sure enough, three years after its purchase it still hasn't noticeably grown, nor shown a serious effort at producing fruit. Meanwhile, it has the stature of the humpback of the Notre Dame.
So we must console ourselves with the pretty blossoms that brighten up the back yard in spring, and be content with the useful range of dappled to dense shade they provide in our orchard nursery area - providing a temporary home for perennials of varying needs. After all, what's an orchard without apple trees?
|
We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston. About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Malus
I welcome comments about my web pages; feel free to use the form below to
leave feedback about this particular page. For the benefit of other visitors
to these pages, I will list any relevant comments you leave, and if
appropriate, I will update my page to correct mis-information. Faced with an
ever-increasing onslaught of spam, I'm forced to discard any comments including
html markups. Please submit your comment as plain text. If you have a
comment about the website as a whole, please leave it in my
guestbook. If you
have a question that needs a personal response, please
e-mail me.
|