I Like Monday 17
More nature! This Monday, I like... hawthorn.
Image taken from Stephen Buchan's Flickr feed. Photograph is copyright Stephen Buchan.
And a good job too, because there is a lot of it in Northern Ireland! Practically every hedge around every field is made up of hawthorn. I'm told that the trees live for ten years but I'm sceptical; I'm over 30 and don't remember dad having to replant any of our hedges in that time - and they were well-established before I was born. Of course, it is possible that the hawthorn replaced itself with offshoots or germinated seeds, and in the muddle of brambles and ivy, I couldn't tell the difference between the old and the new.
This particular spring I am loving watching the hedgerows turn bright yellow-green with new leaves or white with blossom. Winter is over, the world is gearing up for summer, the birds are chittering all around. It's a good time to be alive and be out in the country, and the hawthorn is an important part of that. Why else is it that we have a veritable plague of house-sparrows around home when the TV tells us they're in decline in the UK? Could it be *gasp* because of all those hawthorn hedges, with their long, untidy shoots, close-packed mesh of thorns and branches, and that super-abundance of red fruit in autumn?
Yes, spring and autumn - those two threshold seasons, with one foot in the hot, one foot in the cold and both feet in the wet - that's when the hawthorn is at its best. Spring, because of that gorgeous shining green I mentioned earlier, and the bright white flowers with a splay of pink-tipped stamens inside (see the second image here), which from a little distance makes them look like they've got freckles. And autumn because of those berries. In fact, you say the word "autumn", I immediately think of haws (as they're most often known locally). As a child, asked to bring in autumn leaves etc. for a school nature project, haws made the majority of my haul. I remember being disappointed at the time; I would have liked to get more rosehips lol. They say that familiarity breeds contempt but in the case of hawthorn, it's bred appreciation.
Image taken from Stephen Buchan's Flickr feed. Photograph is copyright Stephen Buchan.
And a good job too, because there is a lot of it in Northern Ireland! Practically every hedge around every field is made up of hawthorn. I'm told that the trees live for ten years but I'm sceptical; I'm over 30 and don't remember dad having to replant any of our hedges in that time - and they were well-established before I was born. Of course, it is possible that the hawthorn replaced itself with offshoots or germinated seeds, and in the muddle of brambles and ivy, I couldn't tell the difference between the old and the new.
This particular spring I am loving watching the hedgerows turn bright yellow-green with new leaves or white with blossom. Winter is over, the world is gearing up for summer, the birds are chittering all around. It's a good time to be alive and be out in the country, and the hawthorn is an important part of that. Why else is it that we have a veritable plague of house-sparrows around home when the TV tells us they're in decline in the UK? Could it be *gasp* because of all those hawthorn hedges, with their long, untidy shoots, close-packed mesh of thorns and branches, and that super-abundance of red fruit in autumn?
Yes, spring and autumn - those two threshold seasons, with one foot in the hot, one foot in the cold and both feet in the wet - that's when the hawthorn is at its best. Spring, because of that gorgeous shining green I mentioned earlier, and the bright white flowers with a splay of pink-tipped stamens inside (see the second image here), which from a little distance makes them look like they've got freckles. And autumn because of those berries. In fact, you say the word "autumn", I immediately think of haws (as they're most often known locally). As a child, asked to bring in autumn leaves etc. for a school nature project, haws made the majority of my haul. I remember being disappointed at the time; I would have liked to get more rosehips lol. They say that familiarity breeds contempt but in the case of hawthorn, it's bred appreciation.