Crabapples Add Curb Appeal

Crabapples add curb appeal to salt-box homes

By Amy McDowell

Two-story homes are immensely popular around the Des Moines metro area for one simple reason; homebuyers can get a bigger home for less money. They are much cheaper per square foot than ranch-style homes. After moving in, new homeowners struggle to landscape those boxy facades, and it’s common to see a ring of short shrubs (nearly always Spirea) around the home’s foundation. Unfortunately, that kind of landscape is out of scale with the size of the home and ends up looking chintzy. Some designers call that look “garnish around the turkey”.

A single tree in the front yard will aesthetically break up the tremendous bulk of the home and make it appear grounded. The tree’s canopy shouldn’t conceal the home in a dark leafy mass; it should be planted off center so it will not directly block the front door or any windows from the street.

Although a towering oak with rugged branches arching to shelter the roofline is the ideal tree for many reasons, oaks are slow growing and planted for future generations to enjoy. Go ahead and plant one, but you’ll also want to plant something that will grow faster. Plant an ornamental tree that will give your home curb appeal and help it blend with the landscape within a handful of years.

Crabapple trees are the best ornamental trees in Iowa. They are amazingly well adapted to our heavy clay soils and bitter cold winters. Tour the Arie den Boer Crabapple Arboretum at Water Works Park and you’ll see specimens that have survived many a flood. Trees that can survive floods are tough-tough-tough when it comes to living in clay soil. Crabapples bloom faithfully each spring in pink, white or red.

For 15 years, “Spring Snow” Crabapple was all the rage because it is fruitless. But being fruit-free isn’t all that important for the crabapple hybrids of today—they nearly all have tiny fruits that are retained long into the winter months. Mushy golf-ball-sized crabapples rotting in the grass are a thing of the past, thank goodness. New crabapple varieties are bred for rust resistance, too, so there no problems with ratty-looking foliage and late-summer leaf drop.

If your two-story home sticks awkwardly out of the landscape, plant a crabapple. They are hardy as heck, fast growing and beautiful bloomers.