Shakespeare wrote “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”. H.E. Bates borrowed part of the line. I am reminded of it every spring when a tearing wind batters the Philadelphus flowers.
Now, in April, rough winds are shaking the darling buds of May, or hawthorn. I planted some hawthorn in my earlier life. It’s common and cheap.
Then I got to a point where I vowed that I wouldn’t ever again plant anything with thorns on it.
Later I relented and put in a few pieces of hawthorn, allowing them to grow into trees. I have learned to take off the lower branches. A few years ago I heard a person on TV say that her garden was not big enough for lots of trees, but if she had room for only one tree, she would plant hawthorn because it supports a large number of species. I hadn’t known that before.
I have seen two modern hawthorn hedges planted. One was doing nicely for a few years but the people moved, so the hedge was taken out. The other did splendidly, and for longer. It was well-maintained.
Sadly it was pulled out for the machines to move in and build two more dwellings. A new hedge has been planted but it isn’t hawthorn.
In the last 50 years how many acres in the SHDC area have stopped supporting food crops and hedges and headlands and been knocked down to concrete?
Suppose all the people who have moved into this area in the last 30 years would try to find a space for one hawthorn tree or even keep it clipped to shrub size, would that be a nice thing to do in recompense for all the brown and green which has been lost to the grey?
Frances Richardson
Surfleet
