Crab Apple - pruning -
WHY Take a crab apple tree as another example. If you are growing it primarily to produce fruit for jellies and juice, it should be pruned as carefully as any fruit tree.
HOW You should thin the branches enough so sun can enter easily and thoroughly ripen all the fruit. Renew the old branches, and thin the fruit to encourage annual bearing. On the other hand, a crab apple grown for the beauty of its flowers and fruit may need very little pruning. Many varieties, like the Dolgo, grow into beautiful specimens with almost no training. Crab apples also can be pruned into tight hedges that are almost impenetrable to animals and people by shearing them tightly several times during the summer, when they are growing, just as you would an evergreen hedge. They can be grown, also, as miniature trees in tubs, as espaliers on buildings, for shade, as a screen, and on and on.
