Somebody read that hawthorns grow wild here. Domestic varieties show up in low-water gardening just about everywhere, with their pretty pink flowers and their red berries for the birds. Full marks for that, for sure. Here is one decorating a subdivision pumping station…

Hawthorn Blending in with the Locals

The idea is to sell a vision of France. At least, I think that’s it.

The problem is that the darned things do need just a wee tad more water than xeriscaping allows.  What’s more, they are just too popular…

Hawthorn Suffering from Porcupine Blight

Wild hawthorns cope with night-time visitors by growing multiple stems.  Win some, lose some. It’s a clever strategy.

The result is like the Ypres Salient…

Tree with No Resilience

Once a member of the rose family’s wood is damaged by drought and frost, or a little come-in-the-night slashing in this case, it just doesn’t recover.

No amount of water will help this tree now. Or this one…

Hawthorn in the Lavender

The posts are a nice touch. Soooo elegant.

Lets make a pact: let’s respect our water. Step 1: grow only native hawthorns.

Wild Hawthorns Falkland

Note the thorns. Porcupines know lots about that. They respect it.

Wild cherries are an easier mark, eh:

Trees are Food, or …

Eating is pruning. It keeps new shoots coming up from the crown. But it doesn’t work with decorative hawthorns. The scrubby little shoots that result are drought-damaged, too, and don’t do too well at providing height to landscaping installations. Ok, yeah, even the lavender is higher than they are.

Step 2. Let’s support our local nursery that propagates and sells native strains of plants that survive here. And as for the wild hawthorns, white flowers in the spring, and subtle foliage in the fall…

Black Hawthorn

No problem.

Step 2: let’s respect the water and pick that lavender. If we’re going to sell houses based on images of Provence, let’s do as the French do and actually go to work in those fields. In this landscape, water is wood and leaf and stem. It is not a decoration.