COLUMNIST: SCOTT GALLOWAY
It is the first hedgerow blossom, appearing in early March and lasting several months before the formation of small, round, blue-black fruits, known as sloes, or slaes in Scotland. The flowers are considered a sign of hope, bringing light into the darkness, signalling a change in the season, reminding us that the melancholy of winter is not eternal.
As a member of the Rosaceae family, it is easily identified by its characteristic single, five-petalled, white, occasionally pink, flowers and crown of red tipped stamens. It is known botanically as Prunus spinosa and can be found growing in native woodlands, hedgerows, scrublands, and open fields across Europe and Western Asia. It grows wild across most of Scotland, although is rarer in the north.
It is not often grown as a garden plant because of its tendency to sucker, thus best avoided in small gardens. In Scotland, it is referred to colloquially as bulister, and in Gaelic as airne (sloe), preas nan airneag (sloe bush), sluach and droighneag. In the Irish tradition, blackthorn represents the 14th letter of the Ogham alphabet - known as straif ᚎ - often translated as sulphur and considered to be the origin of the modern word strife.
The fruits, flowers, and leaves of blackthorn are all considered to have powerful medicinal benefits. The leaves and fruits are rich in tannins and vitamin C, and the flowers, steeped in boiling water, have a diuretic and laxative effect on the body. The boiled leaves can be used as a mouthwash to soothe inflammation in the throat and extracts of the juice of the sloes can be used in an elixir to boost the body’s vitality.
Sadly, the healing benefits of blackthorn have often been overshadowed by its dark and sinister associations. It was traditionally believed to be an ill-omened tree, associated with the dark practices of witches who used the hard and strong wood to make a walking stick, otherwise known as the black rod, which if pointed at a pregnant woman was believed to cause miscarriage.
The extremely sharp thorns are said to have been used by the Devil to pierce the finger of his faithful servants, creating a wound that would heal to leave his Witch’s mark. The thorns, so easy to pierce the skin, even with a scratch, were once tipped with poison and used as a weapon to bring death to one’s enemies. The association of blackthorn with the Devil led to the old saying: “Better the bramble than the blackthorn, better the blackthorn than the Devil”.
Blackthorn however, wasn’t always associated with the malignant. In Celtic mythology it was believed to be a sacred tree of protection with the ability to ward off evil spirits. The wood was harvested to create walking sticks with intricate carvings and was believed to have defensive powers against evil.
In Scotland, the wood of the tree is said to be ‘crossed’, a reference to its dual purpose as a tool of evil, as well as protection. Furthermore, our Celtic ancestors believed that blackthorn and its sister, our native hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna, represented both the light and dark halves of the year.
If I have not scared you off growing blackthorn, then I hope you will allow me to suggest some excellent cultivars worth trying in the garden.
This is an exceptional double flowered cultivar which is absolutely worth growing for its spring interest. Luckily, the clone is maintained in cultivation by Robert Vernon of Bluebell Arboretum and Nursery in Derbyshire, where it is grown as a standard, forming an attractive, upright small tree. When grafted onto a normal blackthorn rootstock, ‘Plena’ has been found to suppress the suckering habit making it more suitable as a slow growing garden tree.
If you’re looking for something a little more unusual, then you might be interested in this purple blackthorn. Unlike its native parent, its leaves emerge bright red in the spring before slowly turning a deep, dark purple. Its flowers emerge pink rather than white, an unusual but welcome feature, and eventually form the classic dark blue fruits we use for sloe gin.
Mount Pleasant Trees is the only supplier of this cultivar in the UK and unfortunately they do not deliver, however, they are more than accommodating if you can collect. I plan to travel there in April and collect a few cuttings to try growing in Glasgow. One to certainly keep an eye out for!
Scott Galloway is a Glasgow based horticulturist currently working in biodiversity policy development in local government. He has worked in horticulture for over 6 years in various roles across the National Trust for Scotland, Royal Horticultural Society, and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Scott is a researcher of bergenia and has built a collection of more than 150 plants, from which he produced the first ever phylogeny of the genus in 2023. He is now expanding his work to include the study of another garden favourite rodgersia, and is interested in growing a wide range of Himalayan, Central, and East Asian plants. He is also specialises in herb growing, and has recently leased a horticultural facility from which he hopes to propagate some of the many interesting and unusual plants in his collection.
Follow Scott on Instagram for more chat and watch his bergenia collection grow on @thebergenlist!