Crabdronia II: A Peak Peek

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Last week, we posted “Crabdronia: BYGL Readers Ask and Receive”, a bygl-alert (https://bygl.osu.edu/index.php/node/1551) with a drone video of the Crablandia plot at OSU’s Secrest Arboretum in Wooster, Ohio taken on May 2.

 

On Friday, virtualoso drone gurus Scott and Danae Wolfe directed another droneo, mere hours before Secrest’s 26 degree F, Saturday morning frost. This then is the last Crablandia “peak” peek for this year. Here is the link:

 

https://www.facebook.com/Friends.of.Secrest/videos/251315119447481/?hc_ref=ARSIRp0Ymv7bypwmkfPnLSKejgt6GrOQ2Oazm_FxWIRguIJkYBKw01p8aiCWnIuB4DI&fref=nf&__tn__=kC-R

 

Showtime crabapple with frost damage
Showtime crabapple looked good from afar Sunday morning, but up close there was some frost injury.

 

All was not lost. As noted in the earlier alert, there is a 3-4 week range for first and full blooms of different crabapple taxa, so damage from the frost (and we may get another one or two the next two night/mornings) varies depending upon flower development for that crabapple taxon.

 

Adirondack crabapple
Adirondack crabapple is a late bloomer and is shown here, with proper pandemic precautions.

 

Sargent Tina crabapple
Sargent Tina crabapple, a dwarf dwarf,  is an even later bloomer, barely out as of Sunday morning this week.  

 

 

This is much like what orchardists and berry growers must contend with each year: just how far along, just how susceptible to frost damage, just how low did it go and for how long are their different fruit crops in their location of Ohio.

 

'Rosseau' crabapple
Rosseau crabapple begins to fade

 

Rosseau crabapple
Though it is still spectacular in overall effect

 

Camelot crabapple with frost injury
Camelot crabapple got freezer burn

 

Coralburst crabapple
While Coralburst crabapple is just starting to excel

 

Coralburst crabapple
With a magnificent overall spreading beauty the rest of this week

 

frost injury on Zumi Calocarpa crabapple
Zumi Calocarpa crabapple lost its allure

 

frost injury on Zumi Calocarpa crabapple
Even from afar

 

Frost injury on Weeping Candied apple crabapple
Weeping Candied Apple wept

 

Pink Satin crabapple
Yet Pink Satin crabapple was elegant
 
Brandywine crabapple
And Brandywine crabapple showed us why the genus Malus is in the rose family

 

So, that is a bit of what we saw in Crablandia and surrounding roadside Secrest crabapples on Sunday morning.  Though the Crablandia peak was cut short by frost this year, it was bound to happen soon anyway with a string of 70 degree days due later this week and next. And, the frost does not damage the tree after all, though that is sometimes beside the point when fruit crops are damaged.

At any rate, now that crabapples begin their move away from flowers to foliage, form, and fruit finery, it is also important to remember that other joys are just beginning.

 

oak leaves emerging
The Oaks Are Coming! The Oaks Are Coming!