Sargent Crabapple and Crabapple Cultivars (Malus, Rosaceae).

 

Winterthur, Delaware, 2012 – 2019, 2021.

Legacy of Henry Francis du Pont, 1880-1969, American

 

 

 

There is a large stand of mature white-flowering Sargent crabapple trees in the park at Winterthur.  Like a cathedral.

 

On both sides there are straight-backed white-flowering crabapple cultivars. 

 

At the rear of the Sargent crabapple stand, straight-backed cultivars bearing flowers in pinks.

 

Farther away, a second single Sargent white-flowering crabapple tree.

 

In winter, you can see most clearly the sinuous, singular structure of the Sargent crabapple.

 

 

You can stand fully upright within the stand even if you are very tall  and even though their boughs are bowed and some are kneeling.

 

 

 

 

Crabapple trees here leaf in April.

 

 

 

 A volunteer gardener pruning on a May day, 2017. On a beautifully crafted wooden ladder

 

 

Azalea cultivars and a Chinese snowball viburnum encroach on the stand of Sargent crabapple trees

Azalea cultivars and a Chinese snowball viburnum encroach on the stand of Sargent crabapple trees

Azalea cultivars and a Chinese snowball viburnum encroach on the stand of Sargent crabapple trees

 

 

The first both to leaf and flower are the  crabapple cultivars. 

 

 

 

In April, star flowers (Ipheon) blooming at the foot of a crabapple cultivar

 

 

 

 

 

And with significant warming of the weather in mid-spring, the Sargent crabapple trees bear white flowers.

Profuse flowers alternate every other year with a light flowering.

In 2021, the flowering is light.

 

 

This flowering is heralded by that of Royal azalea which have been planted as an honour guard from the park to within a few yards of the concentration of crabapple trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flowers of both Sargent crabapple and crabapple cultivars

 

 

 

 

 

The flowers of the pink crabapple cultivars fade and petal to the ground first.

 

 

The white Sargent crabapple flowers  and those of white cultivars survive a little longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sargent crabapple in flower is a dazzling oasis:

 

with its meshes, lacework, and fretwork grills;

 

and mottled tree trunks; 

 

and on the grass, imitative patterns in browns, grays, greens, creams, pale yellows;

 

transient light and dappling sun;

 

and a dancing flower barrier to the rest of the park in which there are also bough-portals, as if carved

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so away. 

 

First to the shade of the second and lone Sargent crabapple tree from which the  stand is visible

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then away.  Really away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To sit with azalea in a circle of sobriety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In summer, when the flowers of the Sargent crabapple stand have long since faded and been blown away,

 

there is deep chlorophyll shade for the duration of the season

 

 

 

 

 

 

until early autumn when the red-orange fruit and colours of the Sargent crabapple stand warm its earth and its sky in advance of its naked winter.

 

 

 

  

To await us in Spring. 

 

Except, of course, that all this beauty is not created and recreated for us.