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Crabapple Allee

Between the Swale Garden and the Daylily Collection runs a paved walkway flanked by lawn and shaded by twisted crabapple trees. Apples were once Acton’s chief agricultural export (click here for a history of land use in Acton), and the Arboretum was the site of an orchard until the 1960s. The three species of crabapple growing along the Allee—dolgo, snowdrift, and zumi—were selected for their white bloom in emulation of the old apple orchard, as well as their resistance to disease.