When his parents purchased a home in Carroll, Iowa, Austin Eischeid saw what many aspiring garden designers dream of: A blank canvas. “I drove home with a car full of plants the weekend they moved in,” says Eischeid, who was working toward a bachelor’s degree in horticulture in nearby Ames at the time. He arrived at their new place with a clear vision of a meadowlike landscape of grasses and flowering perennials. He got the idea after hearing horticulturist Roy Diblik lecture on the beauty of naturalistic gardens and their ability to attract pollinators. Practically speaking, Eischeid saw the approach as a way to give his parents a break from frequent pruning, watering, and mowing.
So out went the front yard’s clipped lawn, along with shrubs and overgrown vines in the backyard. In their place, Eischeid arranged plants in drifts as they might grow in a prairie, a move he has learned during his time working with Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf. Eischeid also put techniques from school into practice, such as tightly packing plants to prevent weeds.
Eleven years in, the garden overflows with grasses and flowers and has become a retreat for Eischeid’s parents. He himself now lives in Chicago, where he works as a garden designer, but his mom, Belinda, keeps him updated on how plants are filling in and which flowers the bees are visiting. “She sends me 40 to 50 pictures a week, no joke,” Eischeid says. “She calls the garden her entertainment.”
With the new design, the garden requires almost no care. “In 11 years, it has only been watered five times, when there have been droughts,” Eischeid says. His parents skip the typical fall cleanup and let the perennials go to seed as food for birds and winter interest. In early spring, they mow perennial beds to the ground but leave the debris where it falls as compost to insulate the soil and fuel new plant growth.
Table of Contents
How to Create Your Own Natural Garden
You don’t have to hire a professional landscape designer to make your own garden a little more pollinator-friendly. Eischeid has a few easy tips anyone can use to embrace a more natural style in their garden.
1. Plant Perennials
Eischeid suggests choosing five to seven varieties and planting several in a mass for waves of color and texture. Repeat combinations in different beds, such as clusters of alliums, coneflowers and penstemon next to moor grass.
2. Let Your Plants Grow Naturally
Part of the beauty of a garden is seeing it unfold through the seasons. Eischeid suggests skipping deadheading and instead watching perennials’ life cycle: Filling in, flowering, and setting seeds.
3. Design Stopping Points
If you’re packing your garden with plants, Eischeid says it’s important to create breathers in the form of containers, seats, or fountains. In his parents’ backyard, he included three water features and five small seating areas.
Gallery: 13 of the Most Colorful Crabapple Trees for Your Yard (Better Homes and Gardens)
bright pink Adams crabapple blooms on tree
Known for their fragrant springtime blooms and jewel-like fruit, crabapple trees make beautiful additions to the landscape. There are tons of varieties to choose from, but here are the best ones for long-lasting, colorful flowers, fruit, and fall foliage when planted in a sunny spot.
Adams
Add some rosy color to your landscape with ‘Adams’ flowering crabapple. Its abundant semidouble deep pink blooms are followed by small, glossy, red crabapples with blood-red pulp. The fruit matures in the fall, persists in the winter, and attracts birds. This tree’s green leaves also have reddish tints in spring, and turn orange and red in the fall. This variety has good resistance to the major diseases that can affect crabapples.
The long-lasting, deep pink buds of this crabapple variety are known to open into nearly pure white flowers. Its blooms develop into abundant orange-red fruits that hang on into early winter. Adirondack’s leaves are green through most of the year, before turning yellow in fall. The relatively upright form of Adirondack makes it a perfect choice for narrow spaces in the landscape as a hedge or an espalier. The tree has excellent resistance to apple scab, powdery mildew, cedar-apple rust, and good resistance to fire blight.
The large red fruits of ‘Callaway’ crabapples trees are good for making a tart jelly as well as attracting birds to the garden. The tree blooms in spring with single white fragrant flowers. Its leaves emerge green, then they turn shades of yellow, orange, and red in fall. It is one of the best crabapple trees for Southern areas because it has a low-chill requirement for flowering and fruiting. It also has excellent resistance to scab, fire blight, powdery mildew, and cedar-apple rust, even through hot, humid summer conditions.
Form: Oval, rounded
Season of Bloom: Mid-spring
Size: Up to 25 feet tall and 20 feet wide
Zones: 5-8
Buy It: Callaway Crabapple Tree ($26, Ison’s Nursery & Vineyards)
Cinderella
If you want a crabapple tree but think your yard doesn’t have room for one, take another look at Cinderella (also called ‘Cinzam’). This dwarf crabapple tree fits almost any landscape, or in container gardens. It’s a compact plant with densely packed white blooms and golden yellow fruits. Its green foliage turns golden yellow in autumn. It also has good resistance to apple scab and excellent resistance to fire blight, powdery mildew, and cedar-apple rust.
Form: Oval, dwarf
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide
Zones: 4-8
Buy It: Cinderella Dwarf Crabapple Tree ($130, Pahl’s Market)
Harvest Gold
A late-flowering crabapple with pink buds that open to single white blooms, Harvest Gold (or ‘Hargozam’) is often considered the best gold-fruited crabapple. Its bright yellow fruits last into winter, and its green foliage turns yellow in fall. The tree’s shape makes it a good small shade tree as well as an attractive flowering and fruiting ornamental plant. It also has good resistance to all four major crabapple diseases: Fire blight, apple scab, powdery mildew, and cedar-apple rust.
Form: Upright oval
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 25 feet tall and 25 feet wide
Zones: 3-8
Buy It: Harvest Gold Crabapple Tree ($98, Planting Tree)
Louisa
The spreading, weeping form of ‘Louisa’ has a graceful appearance. Clusters of delicate pink blooms cover its arching branches, followed by amber-yellow pea-size fruits that mature in fall and hang on into winter. Its foliage is glossy dark green and turns yellow in autumn. If left unpruned, its branches will drape all the way to the ground. The tree has excellent scab resistance and good resistance to fire blight, cedar-apple rust, and powdery mildew.
Pinkish-red flower buds on the Prairifire crabapple tree open to deep pink blooms. The flowers are followed by masses of purplish-red fruits that attract birds. Its leaves emerge purplish, mature to bronzy green, and develop a yellow-orange glow in autumn. This tree has reddish-brown bark similar to cherry trees, which looks especially eye-catching when contrasting with a blanket of snow.
Form: Upright
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 20 feet tall and wide
Zones: 4-8
Buy It: Prairifire Flowering Crabapple ($34, The Home Depot)
Profusion
Named for its abundance of magenta pink blooms, ‘Profusion’ crabapple has many attractive landscape qualities. Its foliage emerges purple, turns bronzy green in summer, and rounds out the season with mottled yellow, orange, and green tones. The tree develops ruby-red fruits that may be harvested for jellies. The foliage has excellent resistance to cedar-apple rust, good resistance to fire blight and powdery mildew, but only fair resistance to apple scab.
Form: Rounded, spreading
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 30 feet tall and 35 feet wide
Zones: 4-8
Buy It: Profusion Crabapple ($36, Etsy)
Red Jewel
Producing abundant cherry-red fruits after its large, white flowers bloom, Red Jewel (also called ‘Jewelcole’) lives up to its name. In mild-winter areas, the fruits remain on the tree until the following spring. This variety’s green foliage turns yellow in fall. The shape of the tree remains fairly narrow, so it’s a good choice for smaller yards. The tree also has good disease resistance, but occasional fire blight or powdery mildew may develop.
Known for being a fast-growing cultivar, ‘Robinson’ crabapple has pale pink blooms that develop into dark red fruits, which persist on the tree into winter. Its leaves emerge purple but turn bronze-green as they mature, then take on bright orange fall color. Apple scab, fire blight, cedar-apple rust, and powdery mildew rarely affect this tree’s foliage.
Form: Upright when young; rounded with age
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 25 feet tall and wide
Zones: 4-8
Buy It: Robinson Flowering Crabapple ($36, Etsy)
Royal Raindrops
The easy-to-grow crabapple tree, Royal Raindrops (which has the unfortunate variety name ‘JFS-KW5’) begins the season with magenta pink blooms that develop into persistent red fruits. Its unique deep purple cutleaf foliage in the summer is an outstanding ornamental feature. In autumn, the foliage turns a mix of orange, scarlet, bronze, and purple. This small tree’s strong branching pattern and dense canopy hold up well in windy sites.
Form: Upright rounded to vase shape
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 20 feet tall and 16 feet wide
Zones: 4-8
Buy It: Royal Raindrops Crabapple ($450, itrees.com)
Snowdrift
It’s safe to assume that with a name like ‘Snowdrift’, this crabapple variety produces pure white blossoms in spring. The fragrant blooms are followed by orange-red fruits that hang on the tree well into fall. The tree has glossy green leaves in summer and reliably provides muted yellow fall color. Occasional fire blight and scab can occur affect it, though.
Form: Rounded to upright spreading
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 20 feet tall and wide
Zones: 4-8
Buy It: Snowdrift Flowering Crabapple Tree ($36, Etsy)
Sugar Tyme
A prolific bearer, Sugar Tyme (‘Sutyzam’) crabapple has pink buds that open to pure white fragrant blossoms. The showy flowers are followed by masses of small, glossy, red fruits that mature in autumn and hang on the tree into winter. Its dark green leaves develop muted fall colors of mottled green, yellow, and orange. It’s no wonder this disease-resistant tree looks spectacular all year long.
Form: Oval
Zones: 4-8
Season of Bloom: Spring
Size: Up to 18 feet tall and 15 feet wide
Zones: 4-8
Buy It: Sugar Tyme Crabapple Tree ($130, NatureHills.com)
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