Royalty Crab Apple, Large Trees

Malus Royalty: Bareroot Royalty Crab Apple Trees in Standard Sizes

Malus Royalty crab apples are excellent ornamental trees, suitable for an average sized garden, giving you rich, deep colours from spring to autumn. Its glossy, dark, purplish foliage keeps its pigment through the summer, unlike other many crabs that have colourful young leaves. The large, pink-red flowers really benefit from this deeply toned background, creating a very pleasing effect of layered, contrasting colour when admired close up, although from a distance the leaves tend to drown out the flowers.
The scarlet autumn display is magnificent, and then the dark red-black fruits continue to adorn the branches for several more weeks after the leaves fall. All in all a simply beautiful tree if you need some darker tones in your garden.
Ultimately, Royalty can reach a height of about 7 metres with a neatly conical, rounded habit. Older trees will spread if you let them.

Browse our variety of crab apple trees or our full range of ornamental garden trees.

Delivery season: Crab apple trees are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.
Choosing a size: Small trees are cheaper, easier to handle and more forgiving of less than ideal aftercare, so they are best for a big planting project. If instant impact is your priority, or if you are only buying a few plants for use in a place where it is convenient to water them well in their first year, then you may as well use bigger ones. All our bareroot trees are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Features:

• Height: 7m
• Soil: Any well drained
• Use: Specimen, small(ish) gardens, urban
• Colour: Purple red flowers in May
• Susceptible to scab
• Bareroot delivery only: November-March

Growing Royalty Crab Apples

Any well drained soil with decent fertility and moisture; it doesn't perform well on really dry sites without irrigation. Tolerant of pollution.

It makes a good pollinator in an apple orchard, but sadly is quite susceptible to scab, which tends to be a problem in the warmer, more humid parts of the South and West of England and Wales. If scab is a concern in your area, Red Sentinel is a better choice.

Did You Know?

This tree was selected in the 1950's from open pollinated seedlings by the Canadian plantsman W. L. Kerr, who was superintendent of the Dominion Forest Nursery Station at Sutherland, Saskatchewan, which closed in 1966.

Standard trees are measured by their girth in centimetres 1 metre above ground level: their trunk's waist measurement. Unlike sapling trees and hedge plants, standards aren't measured by their height, which will vary quite a bit both between and within species.
So, a 6/8cm standard tree has a trunk with a circumference of 6-8cm and an 8/10 standard has a trunk 8-10cm around. This measurement makes no difference to the tree's final height.
On average, standard trees are 2-3.5 metres tall when they arrive, but we cannot tell you precisely how tall your trees will be before we deliver them.

Notes on planting Malus Royalty:
Crabapples are tough plants that thrive in any moderately fertile soil. They tolerate shade well, although we recommend planting them in full sun to get the best display of flowers and fruit. Although a moist, well drained site is ideal, crabapples like heavy clay and don't mind a bit of waterlogging in winter.
They won't grow in deep shade and may struggle in very poor dry soil.

Prepare your site before planting:
It is good to dig over the site where you plant a tree several months in advance. Kill the weeds first: for tough weeds like nettles, brambles and ground elder, you will usually need a weed-killer to get rid of them. When you dig the soil over, remove stones and other rubbish and mix in well rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades.

Watch our video on how to plant a tree for full instructions.
Remember to water establishing trees during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Tree Planting accessories:
Prepare your site for planting by killing the weeds and grass.
You can buy a tree planting pack with a wooden stake & rubber tie to support the tree and a mulch mat with pegs to protect the soil around the base of your tree from weeds and drying out.
We suggest that you use mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of all newly planted large trees: if your soil quality is poor, we strongly recommend it.
You can also improve your soil with bonemeal organic fertiliser and Growmore.