Hi Everyone. I received an order of scion yesterday, and in it was hawthorn. I don’t know what I was thinking when I ordered it. I don’t know what I’m going to graft it to. I guessing that I read something on the forum that prompted me to order it. Does it graft to callery?
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@clarkinks will probably know for sure, but I think you can graft pear to hawthorn, so maybe the other way around would work.
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@mayhaw9999 may be able to shed some light on this, as well.
I have grafted pears onto hawthorn understocks… suspect that you could do the reciprocal, if only to provide it a ‘foster home’ until you can source some seedling hawthorn rootstock.
My remaining pear-on-hawthorn tree, grafted in 2001, is pretty significantly dwarfed… it’s only about 8 ft tall, 22 years later… and the pear trunk is almost twice the diameter of the cockspur hawthorn stem supporting it.
It may be that on a callery rootstock, you’ll get phenomenal growth of the hawthorn… or you may get prodigious suckering of the pear below the graft… IDK.
Out of curiosity… what hawthorn did you get?
I have a number of mayhaws (Crataegus species), but all are grafted onto cockspur hawthorn (C.crus-galli) understocks.
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Unfortunately, i have no experience on this. Everyone i know has only done the opposite. Here is my limited experience. Most everything i graft on pear is not the same as pear grafted on them. Quince on pear will not stay alive more than 2 or 3 years, but pear on quince lives fine. Pear on aronia stays alive. Pear on hawthorne lives. In this way, pear adapts better to other trees or bushes than the other way around.
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Crataegus x lavallei aka Lavalle Hawthorn
Now, seeing that it’s a crataegus, I was probably looking at it, but probably didn’t mean to order it. I planted various crataegus last year but nothing large enough to graft to.
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Like probably many others, I get hawthorn rootstock for free. The birds plant it for me.
This is a really good type of hawthorn. I have grafted it to some trees in my yard. This is one of the better tasting hawthorn fruits. Some are tiny and bland. This one is not. It has a mild apple flavor and fewer thorns than other hawthorns. It is a very common street tree around here. That’s where I got my scions.
Remember, hawthorn is a celebrated heart medicine, for thousands of years, known worldwide depending on the species. Mexican is called tejocote and is often made into a type of punch. China has one that is celebrated and made into candy. In Ireland, the people say that you should never cut down a hawthorn tree because it is a “portal to the other side”. The leaves are a vegetable. I have been eating them for years.
I still have good fruit on my tree and it’s the end of February. It tastes good too.
John S
PDX OR
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I will be trying some hawthorn and medlars on plum this year. Wish me luck]
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The lavalle hawthorn that is good is often referred to as the Carriere hawthorn. I think it’s something like crataegus lavallei v. carriere or something like that. Heart disease is the leading killer of Americans. If I can eat tasty fruit to stop it, that’s the kind of medicine I like!
John S
PDX OR
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Hi Lucky,
I’ve not experimented with pear on hawthorn or vice versa. I know that it, quince, and Amelanchier can be used as dwarfing rootstocks for pear. And, my hawthorn experience is limited to mayhaw which I believe may belong to several species. I was introduced to mayhaw by TO Warren and Sherwood Akin. TO and I think Sherwood both liked Parsley haw as a rootstock and that is what I used in northern Mississippi. The mayhaws that I’m growing in northern CA 50+ miles north of San Francisco are grafted onto mayhaw seedlings. This is a Mediterranean climate with no rain for at least 6 months. Certainly a long way from the humid southeast and the sometimes almost swampy area that mayhaws thrive in. I get enough fruit to make a few small jars of jelly to satisfy my southern longing!
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David, @mayhaw9999
Travis Callahan introduced me to mayhaws, and provided me with my first scions… which are still growing on C.crus-galli seedlings I dug out of the cowpasture 20 years ago. I’ve long since lost IDs on all of mine except Dr. Richard O’Barr’s ‘Collossal’ selection, which he sent to me some years later.
I never met TO Warren or Sherwood Akin, but Sherwood’s daughter Jeri and I used to trade emails and some plant materials.
Mine are not quite so far away from the swamps of LA,MS, AL as yours, but still quite a ways from their native habitat. Biggest issue for me is cedar-hawthorn rust. I don’t spray, so some years it takes the entire crop… but occasionally, I’ll get enough mayhaw fruits to make a small batch of jelly.
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Lucky,
I had cedar-hawthorn-rust also. None here in CA. In those MS days I sprayed a lot. I can’t remember what I used but it was quite effective. My wife grows garlic here that is plagued by rust. She uses Serenade which seems to help. Non-toxic Bacillus subtilis. Approved for organic gardening, I think.
I have two varieties of Mayhaw - Harrington’s Late Pink and a red one that I think is TO Warren’s Big Red. I got the last from another transplanted Mississippian who lived in southern CA - his scions from TO.
I have - though IDs are long lost - Big Red, Royalty, Texas Star, Duck Lake, and O’Barr’s Collossal. And a seedling of Rchard Fahey’s ‘Cherry Hawthorn’.
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