Low Chill Apples and Crabapples...and Crateagus/hawthorn, Subtropical/ for the Deep South

I guess this is more than one topic, or one question; but I have looked for years for the "right" hawthorn to grow here in the Deep South (we're in Mississippi).

After eons of human use, Hawthorn is still the number one best heart tonic there is in the world, and completely safe eaten in any amount.  I have been determined, since moving South 34 years ago, to find and grow a Hawthorn for our area.  I actually have had a couple of opportunities; but the medicinal and edibility qualities of the fruits vary so much, and in years past I was more of a perfectionist: I wanted just the Right One.  Now, I'll take one that will reliably grow here, and fruit.  They say we are in Zone "9 and climbing", on our way to being subtropical here.

We had one last little apple tree here on the property, when we arrived; it made a medium-to-small, yellow-green but not sour apple.  Alas.  Idiocy and lack of attention; I think we only got apples for a few years and it is now gone.  I do see lots of supposed low-chill apples offered; but the types are so few.  Besides Anna and Ein Shemer and your grocery store varieties like Grany Smith, does anyone know where to get the more tropical kinds?

Well, I just looked because I remember Dorset Golden came originally from the Bahamas (although I never found a source for trees before!!) but they have trees for sale (via FL) on Amazon, of all places.  This is The One that will do here; if it grows in FL and the Bahamas, we are good!

I still feel like I NEED a crabapple and a hawthorn.  We used to lob one another with the crabapples from our tree in MA when I was a kid; they were a little too astringent to eat.  Crabs are good as additive juices when making cider to age, and sometimes to Perry (pear cider).  The old timers had all sorts of tricks up their sleeves.  We have lost a lot of knowledge.  One thing I would like to try eating is "bread and cheeses", or freshly-plucked young leaves and the tight flower buds of Hawthorn...it is a traditional children's nibble of the UK, and of course a poor person's or hiker's nibble.  I dearly hope children in the UK still wander around the country Most spend the bulk of their day in front of a screen, when not in school.  

Anyway, if you know where I might get a warm-weather crateagus or crabapple with superior qualities let me know!  Or even which particular named type might be recommended for Deep South planting.  The info on this is messy, where I have found any, because there are so many and new sports constantly evolve...but all you need is one.

David the Good says "Ebay" is a good place to look for these things. He has loads of experience growing in the tropics, I expect his writing and videos will be very useful to you!

Thanks, Rachel.  I used to follow David The Good...sent him a monthy donation too cuz ten kids...

I think he was just too fixated on wanting to always have something new to show the camera, and he didn't actually take the tie to "feel" the soil and the plants...there were all kinds of little projects, like one where he made little squares of ground about 2x3 feet, in a big grid, and did a different "method" of soil prep/treatment on each one.  Adding dry stone dust and etc to this or that one...but his ground was sandy and bone dry.  Nothing much grew in any of the squares except for the one where he did "lasagna" gardening; he had started with cardboard and it was saturated; there was all sorts of vegetable matter in there to hold the moisture.  And many times he shows where he threw down an overripe papaya or something and voila, many seedlings (again, the fruit itself had enough moisture and maybe some already-germinating seeds within); or he'd show with pride how they got a big melon plant from volunteer seeds in a compost pile.  But none of this is impressive to me.  He does talk about tropical plants, and he plants them...the one big takeaway I got from him was that you need to amend the soil and keep it moist enough.  I think he knows a lot about growing tropicals; I do too.  The one big takeaway there is, tropicals almost always grow well from fresh seeds, planted immediately.  Seeds of most tropicals do not germinate well after drying like apple seeds will.  But I think David The Good worked too hard on his Persona (guitar playing, being Dad and Hubby on a Homestead) and not enough on how to really manage.  Stuff that grew well for him would grow for anybody (tatsoi, giant yams).  

And, the items I am wanting to plant subtropically are not his usual stuff; I am actually a displaced Yankee in the Deep South missing crabapples and wanting a good edible and medicinal hawthorn.  Hawthorn is so amazing as a food, since it works as a heart tonic...or maybe we could say, as a perfectly innocent medicinal free of any side effects, even over long and abundant use.  The Chinese have little "hawthorn Sandwich" and "Hawthorn Tablets" made of sugar and hawthorn (sometimes with acid and coloring) and thee are freely used...I would like to do soething like that here but sans sugar and additives.  And it just strikes me as such a healthful and beautiful tree to have.  Just always wated to grow it.

I guess I need to buy a few mixed hawthorn trees from different places and just plant them.  That is how I first learned what works here i MS; I would go to the lawn and garden store or whatever and come home with plants and whatever lived, lived.  Soe shorter term, and some I still have 30+ years later.  I am just getting lazier in my old age and want a more "sure thing" at this stage!!  XD