Trees, Shrubs and Conifers: Experience with Mollie Ann crabapple?, 1 by ViburnumValley

ViburnumValley wrote:
HI temarch1:

Your post caught my eye, because ornamental crabapples have been one of my weaknesses over the decades of knowing and growing a lot of plants. Malus \'Mollie Ann\' was a selection produced by the prodigious skills of Father John J. Fiala. I will reproduce his words here.

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Quoting:Malus ‘Mollie Ann’
Parentage: (M. ‘Dorothea’ x M. sieboldii) x (M. ‘Shinto Shrine’ x M. ‘Lullaby’) (Fiala 1978)
An induced octoploid. Named to honor a sister of the introducer, Mollie Ann Fiala Pesata, Medina, OH. Introduced by Klehm Nursery, South Barrington, IL. A unique semi-weeper to 12 ft high and 10 ft wide, with thin branchlets in weeping, raceme-like clusters, unlike any other crabapple, assuming a semi-weeping stage as the great number of racemes increases; leaves rich green, very heavily textured, leathery, very attractive even when tree is not in bloom; buds deep red, opening to finely petaled, single, white flowers in clusters; fruit deep red, about 0.4 in in diameter, not as abundant as flowers. According to Lester Nichols, this crabapple is completely disease resistant, “a unique tree as a polyploid and weeper.” It certainly should be used by hybridizers, especially for its octoploid form and its unique racemelike branching. It should produce some outstanding and unique hybrids. Although interesting in its raceme form, it is primarily a hybridizer’s clone.

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Disease resistance should NOT be an issue for you.

For anyone interested in more about crabapples, I could not recommend more highly Fr. Fiala\'s tome Flowering Crabapples: The Genus Malus.