Purple Prince Crabapple

Purple Prince is the modern standard recommendation for purple-foliaged crabapple use in Puget Sound landscapes when a designer wants saturated purple-bronze foliage combined with rose-red flowers in a typical 20 × 20 ft rounded form. J. Frank Schmidt calls it "probably the best purple foliaged crab for growers," and the cultivar's advantages over the older ‘Liset’ (no stem splitting, faster growth) make it the more reliable choice for current installations. Excellent scab and rust resistance and good fire blight and mildew resistance per JFS support reliable performance in maritime PNW disease conditions. For Puget Sound clients wanting purple foliage with rose-red flowers in a traditional rounded crabapple silhouette, Purple Prince is the default pick. The alternative path is Royal Raindrops® (JFS-KW5) which offers cutleaf finer-textured purple foliage with magenta-pink flowers in a similar size range — choose between them based on whether typical crabapple foliage texture (Purple Prince) or the distinctive cutleaf texture (Royal Raindrops) better fits the design composition. ‘Perfect Purple’ is the third purple option, slightly less disease- resistant per JFS but very cold-hardy.

— Chris Welch, ISA Certified Arborist