How to Prune an Ornamental Crabapple Tree

Crabapple trees need regular pruning.

The flowering crabapple is an ornamental tree that offers a wide variety of options among its 700 varieties. You'll find trees that stop growing at 6 feet and others that keep going until they become a 50-foot-tall structure. Some crabapple trees have a weeping habit while others spread wide or grow upright. They flower in spring, often ahead of the tree's foliage, making blooms in white and various shades of pink and red. Crabapple trees are prone to developing suckers, multiple leaders and crossing branches, problems you can control with regular pruning.

Things You'll Need

• Shears or saw

Instructions

1. Remove suckers sprouting from the roots. With care, move the soil from around the sucker so you can expose the area where it connects to the root. Cut the sucker off at that point.

2. Prune branches that look brown or brittle, have no leaves and might have no bark. These signs indicate the twigs are dead.

3. Trim off damaged branches that are broken, have wilting or no leaves and are infested with insects.

4. Chop off multiple leaders. Crabapple trees often develop double leaders, when two upright branches grow off one another, competing to be the tree's trunk. Remove the extra leader at the point where it forms an angle with the trunk.

5. Cut water sprouts, thin upright twigs that appear at the base of the trunk as well as on lateral branches.

6. Remove branches that cross from one side of the tree to another as they develop. As these stems reach to the opposite side, they may rub against others and damage the bark, making the tree more susceptible to disease.

References

• Landscape-America: Flowering Crabapple
• TLC for Trees: Basic Pruning Techniques