OARDC’s Crabapple Trees Should Hit Peak Bloom This Weekend

WOOSTER, Ohio — The crabapple trees have started blooming at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster. They should be at their finest for Mother’s Day weekend, May 9-10.

“With the expected warmer temperatures this week, this weekend will be the peak bloom,” said Joe Cochran, interim director of the center’s Secrest Arboretum.

The 115-acre arboretum and surrounding OARDC campus are home to more than 600 crabapple trees of more than 150 cultivars. Together they form the largest crabapple tree collection in the U.S., Cochran said.

Included in that total are more than 100 new crabapple trees planted since a tornado hit part of the campus and arboretum in 2010, leveling 1,500 trees, including 150 crabapples.

Cold as it was, the trees got through the past winter fine­. “Crabapples are a fairly tough tree,” Cochran said. “We’re seeing very little winter damage.”

The collection’s cultivars have names like Candymint, Molten Lava and Strawberry Parfait. They bloom in shades of red, pink and white.

OARDC is at 1680 Madison Ave. in Wooster. Admission to the campus and arboretum is free and open to the public seven days a week, dawn to dusk.

The center serves as the research arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences of The Ohio State University.

For details and updates on the arboretum, call 330-263-3761, go to secrest.osu.edu, or follow it on Facebook and Twitter.

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