My Hawthorne is flowering!

Over several years I have planted various different Hawthornes that are supposed to have bigger fruit than our native Crataegus mongyna (common Hawthorne or Quickthorn). For the first time this year I have flowers on two of my trees (yay!): C. Arnoldiana and C. Shraderiana.



I was expecting that they would flower at the same time as the local Hawthorne, but they only started to open as the common Haw was over. I'm now hoping that they are self fertile. Does anyone have any experience to share on this? If not, I'll let you know whether I get any fruit later in the year - my trees are too far apart to be likely to fertilise each other

You could try pollinating by hand.

Nancy Reading wrote:Over several years I have planted various different Hawthornes that are supposed to have bigger fruit than our native Crataegus mongyna (common Hawthorne or Quickthorn). For the first time this year I have flowers on two of my trees (yay!): C. Arnoldiana and C. Shraderiana.



I was expecting that they would flower at the same time as the local Hawthorne, but they only started to open as the common Haw was over. I'm now hoping that they are self fertile. Does anyone have any experience to share on this? If not, I'll let you know whether I get any fruit later in the year - my trees are too far apart to be likely to fertilise each other

I have C. schraderiana so my comments are based on this!

1.  It must be self fertile, because it flowers after the native hawthorns here (south staffs).  I have to say though, only JUST after (as in, June), so I'm not sure what yours is playing at and whether there will be time for the berries to ripen before winter.

2.  Mine only flowers every other year.  Although this year there seems to be a bit less fruit than usual, so maybe it won't exhaust itself and we might actually get a crop next year too.

3.  The fruit has a large cluster of pips, a bit like a Terry's chocolate orange.  This renders it suitable only for recipes that will involve sieving or straining, even though the flavour is quite palatable raw once you've spat the pips out.  It makes excellent wine or jam, and can also be used to flavour vodka.

4.  The seed is hard to germinate, but you may get results from dropping it in muddy gravel and driving a car over it twice a week for a year or so.

5.  I am quite evangelical about this tree, but I do get fed up with saying "I've got a hawthorn, except it's not a native hawthorn and it doesn't actually have thorns."  I've toyed with calling it a Schrader's Haw, but it's not catching on yet...

We're about 500 miles North of you Hester, and unfortunately that makes about 2-4 weeks difference in most Spring dates - our elder flowers end of June, Apple blossom end May early June (about the same as common Haw). We've had a cool summer so far (unlike the South!) and it is the trees' first year of blossom - all of these may make in unlikely to get ripe fruit. One reason why I've planted several varieties of Haw, I know from seeing them at The Fern's field in Cornwall that some ripen earlier than others, but I can't remember which was which! If the fruit hang like the common Haw I may still get ripe fruit in December (or not).
The good news is one of the trees does seem to have set fruit, early days yet but the C. Shraderiana seems to have some of the blossom bases hanging on. The C. Arnoldiana unfortunately seems to be dropping all it's blossom, but there are one or two still open so you never know.....I did try and hand transfer the pollen from Arnoldiana to the Schraderiana. The Schraderiana only had one bunch of blossom so didn't seem worth trying the other way. The pollen did seem kind of ...dry so maybe wasn't viable.
It's early days and there's hopefully next year which may give us a better summer.

Nancy Reading wrote:We're about 500 miles North of you Hester, and unfortunately that makes about 2-4 weeks difference in most Spring dates - our elder flowers end of June, Apple blossom end May early June (about the same as common Haw). We've had a cool summer so far (unlike the South!) and it is the trees' first year of blossom - all of these may make in unlikely to get ripe fruit. One reason why I've planted several varieties of Haw, I know from seeing them at The Fern's field in Cornwall that some ripen earlier than others, but I can't remember which was which! If the fruit hang like the common Haw I may still get ripe fruit in December (or not).
The good news is one of the trees does seem to have set fruit, early days yet but the C. Shraderiana seems to have some of the blossom bases hanging on. The C. Arnoldiana unfortunately seems to be dropping all it's blossom, but there are one or two still open so you never know.....I did try and hand transfer the pollen from Arnoldiana to the Schraderiana. The Schraderiana only had one bunch of blossom so didn't seem worth trying the other way. The pollen did seem kind of ...dry so maybe wasn't viable.
It's early days and there's hopefully next year which may give us a better summer.

That's a good point, it might not be so much about self-fertility per se, as insect availability.  The bees love my C. sch, but if they get blown away by the Skye breezes...

And I'd like to say that the haws hang on the tree into December here and the birds don't really seem to bother with them.  They grow in bunches and I leave one berry from each bunch for decorative effect.  But your birds may be hungrier than mine!

How did your hawthorns turn out in the end Nancy?  My schraderiana is about ripe -- dark red and slightly squishable!

Unfortunately - no ripe berries. I had a cluster that stayed on the tree for a while - one looked like it might swell, but it disappeared one day. I think the birds had it!
This is as close as I got:

In Scotland, we say, "Ne'er cast a cloot till the May be oot", meaning don't go out without a coat until the hawthorns are flowering.  It's funny that tge hawthorns up here are cretaegus monogyna, though; we could probably wait for the later-blooming varieties to take off layers!

(I realise this is a tangent - just wanted to add to the thread!)

Hi Jojo, welcome to Permies! You can fill in your location on your profile, it does help to put comments in context sometimes, especially as this is a US based site.
I'm definitely not casting any cloots at the moment! - just hoping our spring drier weather will arrive soon, so I can get my growing beds prepared.

Nancy Reading wrote: C. Arnoldiana and C. Shraderiana.

Nancy, where were you able to source you arnoldiana from? I was keen to get some on the recommendation of Ken Fern, but it's so expensive to buy plants!

Hi Al, Sorry I just saw your question.
I'm pretty sure both those haws came from the Agroforestry Research Trust (Martin Crawford). Yes they are expensive. They were nice sized trees however. I normally like to buy smaller trees so they establish better, but these have all taken well. You sometimes have to get in early to buy from him, as the stock is limited.
I've also been trying to germinate seeds because of the expense of trees (especially postage due to my location), but so far I'm having very little luck getting them to germinate :(.  However I have managed to successfully grow one little Haw from a seed collected from the Fern's field a few years ago. I'm not sure what the variety is though! I have also managed to graft one of my varieties onto a standard Haw (edit see: https://permies.com/t/114647/hawthorn-isn-flowering#1408508). Again I'm not sure which - I ought to label things better I suppose! I might have another go at that this spring, but I've got quite a bit else going on at the moment so might not have time.
A thought - if you wanted to have a go at grafting yourself, I could send you some cuttings of the trees I have? - they're plenty big enough they wouldn't miss a few twigs if you have a suitable rootstock. pm me your address if you'd find that helpful.

Nancy Reading wrote:Over several years I have planted various different Hawthornes that are supposed to have bigger fruit than our native Crataegus mongyna (common Hawthorne or Quickthorn). For the first time this year I have flowers on two of my trees (yay!): C. Arnoldiana and C. Shraderiana.



I was expecting that they would flower at the same time as the local Hawthorne, but they only started to open as the common Haw was over. I'm now hoping that they are self fertile. Does anyone have any experience to share on this? If not, I'll let you know whether I get any fruit later in the year - my trees are too far apart to be likely to fertilise each other

My mother in law has the best success with pollination of her vegetables with, I kid you not, a personal massager. An old electric toothbrush I would imagine would do similar and I plan to use that this fall on some plants. As long as you have more than one Hawthorne, I'd imagine it would work out. Best of luck!

That's great, thank you! Will pm you the details.

We've ordered lots from ART in the past - a very big fan of Martin Crawford, his books, and the agroforestry bulletin. Have you ever been to visit his garden? I realise it's quite a trek for you!
My interest in arnoldiana comes from reading Ken Fern's Plants for a future where he talks about how delicious its fruits are.

Nancy Reading wrote:
A thought - if you wanted to have a go at grafting yourself, I could send you some cuttings of the trees I have? - they're plenty big enough they wouldn't miss a few twigs if you have a suitable rootstock. pm me your address if you'd find that helpful.

Al William wrote:
We've ordered lots from ART in the past - a very big fan of Martin Crawford, his books, and the agroforestry bulletin. Have you ever been to visit his garden? I realise it's quite a trek for you!
My interest in arnoldiana comes from reading Ken Fern's Plants for a future where he talks about how delicious its fruits are.

Ah yes. Ken Fern and Martin Crawford between them have a lot to answer for! As it happens I was able to visit both Martin's original Forest Garden and the Fern's field on a trip to the West Country a few years ago. It was nice to be able to try some fruit I'd only read about. I wrote about my visits on my 'blog at the time here and here
Anyhow looking forwards to your pm!

An exciting update on the Haw situation. Despite not even noticing the flowers on the C. Shraderiana, both haws have set fruit this year. The C. Arnoldiana is covered in several bunches of set fruit!
We had an unusually warm June here and I'm wondering if this improved the fruit set - making the pollen more mobile or something....

Anyway I was excited, early days yet.


(edited punctuation and mistypes)

Another, slightly premature, update. The berries on the Shraderiana are still hanging in. There are only a few, but all of them are surviving and have changed colour - probably about 1/2inch in length. Most of the ones on the Arnoldiana (as pictured above) have fallen off, generally there is only one surviving out of most of the bunches, so presumably they hadn't really set as well as I'd thought, however there are some.Still fairly excited and wondering at what stage to pick the fruit. I'm also wondering whether to sow or eat them! I can do both of course, since the pips will be rather large to swallow.

Nancy Reading wrote: wondering at what stage to pick the fruit. I'm also wondering whether to sow or eat them! I can do both of course, since the pips will be rather large to swallow.

Each berry has several pips so you will not need many berries to get a good little potful of potential seedlings.  Also, mine has berries too so I can send you some seed if you would like it.

As for ripeness, leave them until they are very dark red if the birds will let you... when you pull them off the tree, they will come off the stalk with an almost "punky" feel when ripe.