Plant Guide

Other Names:  Roseybloom, Crabapple

Description:

An exceptional ornamental tree featuring showy light pink flowers in spring and small persistent bright red fruit in fall, tightly upright habit of growth; makes a great accent for the smaller front yard, needs well-drained soil and full sun

Ornamental Features

Sentinel Flowering Crab is bathed in stunning clusters of fragrant shell pink flowers with white overtones along the branches in mid spring, which emerge from distinctive red flower buds before the leaves. The fruits are showy red pomes carried in abundance from early fall to late winter. It has dark green deciduous foliage. The pointy leaves turn yellow in fall.

Landscape Attributes

Sentinel Flowering Crab is a deciduous tree with a narrowly upright and columnar growth habit. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition.

This is a high maintenance tree that will require regular care and upkeep, and is best pruned in late winter once the threat of extreme cold has passed. Gardeners should be aware of the following characteristic(s) that may warrant special consideration;

• Disease

Sentinel Flowering Crab is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Shade
• Vertical Accent

Planting & Growing

Sentinel Flowering Crab will grow to be about 20 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 12 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 4 feet from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 50 years or more.

This tree should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is highly tolerant of urban pollution and will even thrive in inner city environments. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid.