Crabapple has very small leaves

Hello everyone.
I would be very grateful for some advice. I have an Evereste crabapple which has been in the ground for about 5 years and has never had any problems. This spring it flowered beautifully, but now the leaves are very small and seem to have stopped developing. The flowers also do not seem to be turning into fruits but staying brown on the tree. I can't see any evidence of fungal infection or splits in the bark or trunk. I am in central France, and while our weather has been gray and wet, we haven't had any real cold snaps this spring. This winter was also not particularly cold.
I'm afraid I don't have a photo at the moment, but if anyone has any ideas from the description I would be most appreciative!

 

A photo would be helpful.

 

Yes, thank you. I have edited to add photos.

 

That looks fine to me. Fruits will form behind the old flowers.

 

I hope you're right Punkdoc! The leaves just don't seem to have developed for the last few weeks, so I got worried. I love this tree so much and would hate to lose it.
Anyway, thanks for taking a look!

 

Looks fine to me too. Maybe if it were mine I might be tempted to give it a good feed, if it hadn't been fed for a while. Maybe something slow release like chicken poo pellets. But I didn't see anything in those pics that would really worry me.

 

It got some well rotted horse manure at the end of winter and gets lots of leaves every autumn, so i shouldn't think it is too badly off nutrient-wise. I have never seen chicken poo pellets unfortunately.

 

If you clear away all the stuff at the base, that will benefit the tree rather than other plants too, especially if you're adding organic matter
I agree that there doesn't look to be anything wrong though.

Most GCs sell chicken manure, but you can also get it online. A small amount of BF&Bone would do the same sort of job, but feeding the soil is much better for trees/shrubs.

 

Nothing useful to add as it looks ok to me. We have a small one to help pollinate our other apples and I do know it's a french variety and was named after Eve Reste, not the closely spelt mountain as some people think.

 

Thanks for your help everyone!