Sun Rival

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Sun Rival is a good all-round weeping ornamental crab apple. The blossom is profuse, going from pink-bud to white fully open flowers.

The fruits are small, light red in colour, and hang like cherries.

Sun Rival grows with a distinctive semi-weeping habit, with branches often reaching the ground.

Sun Rival crab-apple trees for sale

• 11-year bare-root tree £36.75
  Medium size (2.5m-3.5m after 10 years)
  

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• 22-year pot-grown tree £61.00
  In a 12L pot
  Medium size (2.5m-3.5m after 10 years)
  

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Order now for delivery from week commencing 4th November for pot grown trees or December for bare-root or mixed tree orders.

How to grow

Sun Rival has good disease resistance (even by crab apple standards).

If you wish to have more control over the height at which the branches start to weep, we sometimes have 1-year bare-root trees of this variety. These can be trained up to about 2m or more using a heavy-duty bamboo cane, giving a bit more height than we usually aim for with our container-grown trees.

After a while you may notice the branches grow long enough to start trailing on the ground. If you don't like this you can prune the branches back by about 30cm on a mild day in the winter.

Sun Rival characteristics

• Gardening skillBeginner
• AwardsRHS AGM (current) - 2012
• Attractive featuresAttractive flowersAttractive fruitAttractive tree / plant
• Growth habitWeeping
• Flower colourPink - light
• Leaf colourGreen
• Fruit colourRed
• Annual cycleDeciduous

Similar varieties

• 
  Malus x purpurea
  Crimson Cascade
  A new weeping crab-apple with dusky pink blossom and small dark red fruitlets.
• 
  Malus
  Royal Beauty
  Royal Beauty is a compact weeping crab apple with crimson blossom and small crimson berry-like fruitlets.

What will it look like?

Illustrative examples of 12L pot-grown trees of this variety as supplied. Approximate girth: 6/8cm. We try to keep all pot-grown trees down to about 1.5m as supplied, but some may be larger. Trees should reach their mature height after about 10 or more years. We may also have 1-year bare-root trees of this variety - they are not shown here.

Top-worked

Malus Sun Rival crab-apple tree

How to choose a crab-apple tree

We list more than 40 different crab-apple trees. Choosing can be difficult! See our article explaining the different characteristics of crab-apple trees which will help you narrow down the selection.