Prunus spinosa
Blackthorn
Common names: Sloe, Sloe bush, Thorny blackthorn
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Hardiness
- Hardy down to −30 °C
- Pruning
- Feb–May
- Harvest
- Oct–Nov
- Spacing
- 150 cm, rows 200 cm
- Water need
- Low
- Origin
- Native to Germany
Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
The blackthorn is a thorny wild shrub that in March is the first to burst into bloom, creating an early bee meadow. Its small, bluish-black fruits are raw, bitter and astringent, but become milder after the first frost and can be used to make liqueur, jelly and wild fruit juice. As an impenetrable thorny hedge it provides valuable shelter for birds and insects.
Care instructions
Plant the blackthorn in autumn, October to November, weeks 42 to 46, in a sunny spot. It is very low-maintenance and thrives even on poor, dry soil. Ensure that it forms dense stands through root suckers. Harvest the fruits after the first frost, November, week 45, or place them briefly in the freezer to mellow their bitterness.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
HarvestOct–Nov
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
sandy, loamy, clayey, well-drained, dry, lime-loving
Blackthorn is very adaptable and copes with sandy, loamy and clay soils, as long as the soil is free-draining and no waterlogging occurs. It prefers chalky, rather dry to fresh sites, tolerates lean sites well and avoids permanently wet and strongly acidic soils.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Mar
As an undemanding wild woody plant, blackthorn needs hardly any feeding. If it shows deficiency (paler leaves), work a thin layer of mature compost shallowly into the root zone in early spring and, if needed, rake in some horn shavings at the surface; in established years no further feeding is needed.
Pruning
Thin the blackthorn after flowering (April/May) or make hard cut-backs in late winter (Feb/March, after the main frost period). It tolerates pruning very well, but from March to September only gentle shaping and maintenance cuts are allowed (bird protection).
Overwintering
Blackthorn is a native wild woody plant and gets through lowland winters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland outdoors without any problem. You do not need fleece, mulch or winter preparation. A hard thinning or cut-back is best done in late winter (February/March); the plant also tolerates radical cuts very well.
Propagation
Methods
- From seed
- Cuttings
- Layering
- Runners
Blackthorn can be propagated in four practical ways, most simply by root suckers.
Root suckers: The easiest method, because blackthorn naturally forms vigorous suckers. In spring (before growth starts) or in autumn after leaf fall, dig up a strong sucker with as much of its own root system as possible, separate it from the mother plant with the spade and plant it immediately at its new location.
Hardwood cuttings: In late autumn or winter (November to February), cut one-year-old, well-ripened shoots 15 to 20 cm long. Remove thorns and leaf bases. Push the cuttings into loose seed compost deep enough that at least one bud is below the surface, and keep them evenly moist (but not wet) in a partly shaded, cool, frost-free spot. Rooting takes several weeks to months; in spring the rooted cuttings start to grow.
Layering: In spring or early summer, choose a long, still flexible shoot close to the ground. Bend it into a shallow furrow, cover the middle with soil and weigh it down with a stone; the shoot tip sticks out. Over the growing season the layer roots, and in autumn or the following spring it can be separated from the mother plant and planted out.
Sowing: Collect ripe sloes in autumn, remove the stones from the flesh and stratify them cool and moist in damp sand in the fridge (approx. 4 °C). Blackthorn is a cold-stratification seed with pronounced dormancy; plan on several weeks to a few months of cold. Alternatively, sow directly outdoors in autumn and leave the stratification to nature. After stratification, sow in spring in pots or a seedbed, cover with about 1 cm of substrate and keep evenly moist. Note: blackthorn grown from seed can differ from the parent type. Ideal for wild hedges, but for a particular variety (e.g. ‘Reto’) choose vegetative propagation instead.
Companion planting
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
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