Evaluation of the decorative and consumption values of crabapple cultivars and their usefulness for urban development

Crabapples are well known ornam ental trees. The magnificent flowering and abundant, colorful fruiting are the main features that have made these trees so popular with the public. From over 900 species, hybrids and cultivars known throughout the world it is very difficult to make the rig ht choice and find the proper tree for a given public area, private garden, or street planting. Although hundreds of crabapples have been named, not many of them have been described and marketed. The majority still remain unknown and unavailable in Poland. In this article, based on the available literature and author’s own observations, an evaluation of the decorative value of 176 cultivars of crabapple is presented. Three of them scored in this research excellent marks of 15 points, which means that these trees are suitable for any landscaping needs. Three cultivars were evaluated at the lowest level of 7 points or less, and their propagation and cultivation should be discontinued mostly because of their high susceptibility to scab. Although flowering craba pples need very little care, they have one serious problem – leaf diseases, with the main and often noted apple scab. This is the main reason why so many of the crabapples in the presented evaluation which scored 7 - 9 points should be planted only in botani cal and dendrological collections to maintain gene diversity and/or for further hybridization programs