Sunday, April 30, 2006

Johnny Appleseeds

I've always been fascinated with the tale of Johnny Appleseed travelling across america feeding fruit to the west through cunning horticulture. If you pay attention to British verges whilst travelling by car you can see evidence of a similar effect.



This lovely stunted little apple was right next to a set of traffic lights on a busy road. It almost certainly started life as a core thrown from a car possibly by a snacking kid in the back seat. Whilst we do have a wild malus in the uk the high incidence of apples by road sides is indicative that a high proportion of these are core-grown fruit. Wild crab apples have very small fruit and whilst growing an apple from a seed is a bad idea if you want good fruit for your garden the roadside trees often have larger fruit (one I know has absolutely huge fruit) closer in size to what you would buy in a grocers. The taste may well not be as sweet as commercial varieties however; some taste horrible.

Normally I'm against litter but in the case of a biodegradable item with such a beautiful result I can't complain about this!

4 comments:

Endment said...

We were out in the woods today and found ancient apple trees far from any signs of habitation. The trees are not yet in full bloom – but what a delight to come suddenly upon them in the midst of pines and oaks.

Lovely photos!

LauraHinNJ said...

Crabapples have the lovliest of blooms, I think. I love the white tinged with pale pink. Beautiful photo!

tai haku said...

I'm a huge fan of crabapples Laura. I believe in the US the flowering cultivars are a bit more popular than here where people tend to plant cherries instead. The delicacy of a small flowering crab like this is stunning.

Pam in Tucson said...

Ummmm, lovely!