Crabapples Make Everyone Happy

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - While big trees are great for shade and keeping your house cool in summer, for smaller garden spots like courtyards or beside patios and below power lines, you want to plant smaller trees that stay out of the way, like our native dogwoods, redbuds, and crabapples - which welcome all kinds of butterflies and birds to your yard to raise their babies.

Last week I saw one of the prettiest and healthiest crabapples of all - a cultivar named 'Sugar Tyme.' In spring, its pink buds open into a generous cloud of white flowers, which yield bunches of bright red crabapples that decorate the tree in the fall. Really just teensy apples, crabapples are enjoyed by birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and people too - they're full of pectin and make great jelly.

Among its other fine features, Sugar Tyme stays a nice size - about 15 feet high - keeps its shape, and is one of the most disease-resistant crabapples around.

See a list of the best trees to plant to help keep birds and butterflies happy and fed at BringingNatureHome.net.

Reported By Phran Novelli, KYW Newsradio