Royalty crab apple trees

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• Self-fertility: Self-fertile
• Blossom colour: Red - dark
• Fruit colour: Red - dark

Malus Royalty has bright purple-red blossom, dark green-bronze leaves, and dark red fruitlets.

Royalty crab apple trees for sale

Malus Royalty is a neat compact ornamental crab apple, and arguably one of the best varieties if you want a bronze-leaved form.

The young leaves have a purple-bronze colour when they emerge, which becomes a bronzed dark green over the summer.

Like most bronze-leaf varieties, the spring flowers are an attractive solid dark purple-red colour, and the fruitlets are a deep red colour.

How to grow

Malus Royalty is not as disease-resistant as most crab apple varieties, although much of the reason for this poor reputation comes from its great susceptibility to fireblight - a disease which can be devastating in some areas of the USA but is not virulent in the UK.

Advice on fruit tree pollination.

History

Malus Royalty was developed in Sutherland, Saskatchewan, Canada, in the 1960s by W.L. Kerr. It is one of a series collectively known as 'Rosybloom' crab-apples. These are hybrids derived from Malus 'Niedzwetzkyana', a unique red-fleshed crab-apple from central Asia which has been the starting point for almost all the bronze-leaved and purple-flowering crab-apple varieties we see today. As well as the strong anthocyanin pigmentation in the stems, leaves, flowers and fruits, most of these varieties are also very cold-hardy. 

Royalty characteristics