Washington Hawthorn

Size, growth and what to expect

A seedling Washington hawthorn bears its first fruit at 5 to 8 years, while a grafted tree often flowers heavily in its third year. It grows at a medium pace, roughly a foot and a half a year in its youth on an average site, which is the rate our growth estimator uses for it. It makes a low-branching tree 25 to 30 feet tall and 20 to 25 feet wide.

Flat clusters of up to 50 half-inch white flowers open in late spring. The glossy red fruit, about a quarter inch across, colors in September and hangs on through winter, when cedar waxwings, quail, turkeys and small mammals eat it. The dense branches shelter nesting birds behind straight thorns 1 to 3 inches long. The name comes from Washington, D.C., where it was reportedly first grown commercially in the late 1700s.

It grows wild from Virginia south to Georgia and Alabama and west to Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, in low swamps and river bottoms in the east and on mountain ridges farther west.

How to grow Washington Hawthorn

Washington hawthorn wants full sun and any soil that drains, clay and dry banks included. It makes a dense rounded tree nearly as wide as it is tall, so plant it 12 feet from a building and, because of the thorns, back from paths and play areas. For a hedge, set plants 5 feet apart.

Plant a dormant sapling, bare-root or potted, between leaf drop and bud break, in a hole twice the root width and no deeper, flare at grade, native soil back in, mulch off the trunk. Stake only on a windy site and remove it after a season. Clean the seed from the fruit and sow it outdoors in fall a quarter inch deep. For a spring sowing, chill it damp for about four and a half months first. Sow it within the year, because stored seed loses viability.

Water weekly the first summer and in dry spells the second. Rabbits gnaw young bark and deer browse the tips until the thorns harden, so use a trunk guard and cage for three years, and wear gloves. Prune in late winter to lift the crown or shape a hedge.

The flowers can smell unpleasant, and the scent draws the midges that pollinate them. A newly planted hawthorn may add little the first year while it roots. Bloom comes in June, late enough to miss frost. It resists the rust and fire blight that ruin other hawthorns, though rust spots can appear where junipers grow nearby.