Main Attraction™ Crabapple
You're making an investment in your land — protect it. Each kit has a Tree Pro tube and a slow-release fertilizer block for one tree. The tube keeps deer and rabbits off and can double your growth rate; the fertilizer feeds the tree through its first season. Plant with a kit, follow the Growing Guide, and your trees are covered by our 1-Year Survival Guarantee.
What you're planting
- Drop Time
- Aug – Dec
- First Crop
- 2–5 years
- Produces
- Every year
- Pollination
- Self-fertile — one tree produces
- Zones
- 3–9 (Northern Minnesota to Central Florida)
- Sun
- Full sun, tolerates partial shade
- Soil & Site
- Well-drained preferred, adapts widely. pH 5.5–7.0.
- Size & Spacing
- 20–30ft · plant 20–30ft apart
Highly attractive and heavy producing crabapple that holds fruit into winter
Orders placed now are for Spring 2027 shipment
We take orders in advance and ship at the proper time for spring planting in your region — mid-December in the Deep South through the end of May up north. Pick your state under "When Will My Order Ship?" below and you’ll see your exact ship dates.
Get your order in now, we sell out early every season!
Here at Whitetail Hill Chestnuts one of our main missions is to pick out the very best varieties of trees for our customers that will not only be extremely attractive to wildlife, but will also be easy to grow. There are thousands of varieties of crabapples out there but we’ve sifted through them to bring you the very best one for deer: our Main Attraction™ Crabapple.
This crabapple produces at a very young age, just 2-5yrs, and bears large (1.5”) delicious fruit that ripens in Aug-Sept and persists well into December. These crabapples are relished by deer. Most trees get visited daily by deer looking to clean up any newly fallen fruit. All crabapples have a reputation for being easy to grow and very low maintenance but our Main Attraction™ Crabapples are hardy even by crabapple standards. They’ll grow virtually anywhere and are extremely disease resistant even to Cedar Apple Rust. Main Attraction™ Crabapples can be grown in zones 3-9 which is from northern Minnesota all the way to central Florida.
Main Attraction™ Crabapples have another great quality that makes them extremely useful, a long bloom time and compatibility with other apples and crabapples. Main Attraction™ Crabapples bloom in March-April and their blooms last for weeks overlapping the bloom time of most other apples and crabapples allowing them to pollinate any other apples or crabs you may have growing nearby. This long bloom time also makes them great for pollinators like bees. You’ll see dozens of bees visiting the flowers of these trees while in bloom. Main Attraction™ Crabapples are self fertile meaning they can produce fruit by their self with only one tree, no need to plant another variety nearby.
All around, Main Attraction™ Crabapples are excellent trees to add to your land. They provide a highly attractive food source for deer and other wildlife, are extremely hardy, and are a great pollinator.
Plant each tree with one of our Survival Kits (a Tree Pro tube and a slow-release fertilizer block), follow our planting instructions, and it’s covered by our 1-Year Survival Guarantee. Full details here.
Drop time: Aug-Dec
Years till production: 2-5
Growing zones: Zones 3-9
Soil type: Prefers well drained areas, adapts to a wide range of soil types
Sun: Prefers full sun but tolerates partial shade
pH: 5.5-7.0
Pollination: Self fertile, no pollinator required
Size: 20-30ft tall at maturity
Size when shipped: 1yr old approx. 18-36in
Spacing: 20-30ft
Add Late Drop and keep chestnuts falling into December.
By November most acorns have been mopped up and the woods go quiet. Late Drop Hybrids are selected to drop Nov–late Dec, right when deer have the fewest options. Our recommendation: a 1:1 mix.
Questions we get about Main Attraction™ Crabapple
We don't ship on the day you order. We take orders in advance and ship at the proper time for spring planting in each region — from mid-December in the Deep South through the end of May up north. Pick your state below to see your exact window. Orders placed after your region has already shipped go out within 5–10 business days.
A Tree Pro grow tube and a slow-release fertilizer block for one tree. The tube protects the seedling from deer and rabbits and can double its growth rate; the fertilizer block feeds the tree through its first growing season. Every tree we ship is already inoculated with beneficial mycorrhizae, so there's nothing else to add — plant it in the kit, follow the Growing Guide, and it's covered by our 1-Year Survival Guarantee.
Plant with a Survival Kit and we guarantee the tree for a full year. If a tree dies within one year of the day it's delivered, we'll issue you store credit for what you paid for it. You don't have to worry about spending your money on something that may or may not make it.
To be covered, plant each tree with one of our Survival Kits (a Tree Pro tube and a slow-release fertilizer block), keep the tube on, and follow our planting instructions. Email us photos and your order number within a year of delivery.
For all details and conditions, see here: 1-Year Survival Guarantee
