Take something you love and make it your job and you'll be happy is probably close to what I can imagine someone saying. Yes, but it's a risk, you're vulnerable, you put your soul on the line. There's a difference between loving something and having a passion. Passion is scary, creative, it feeds the fire deep inside and is probably the path to true expression. Businesses do need to make money but trying to be creative without passion is worthless anyway. I must elaborate this blog will essentially be an inclusive not exclusive expression of how I see plants, react to them and consider how they could be used. My life generally revolves around seeing beautiful things and wanting to create beautiful things. I occasionally dip into the signs of the Zodiac and read the bits I want to hear, a bit like choosing a dog breed. I do though, truly see my inner warmth and inner Aries like a roaring fire: stoke it and you'll get something special, let it dampen and the cold soon creeps in. Beauty feeds the fire; trees in autumn, sunrises and sunsets, all highly flammable, ironically, both metaphorically and visually. This was by way of an introduction to me, further musings I promise will be more design and botanical than self indulgent; I'm a thinker, a searcher for that I will in future spare you but not apologise, imagine being me.
So, finally, sorry, the plant in the picture. The Washington thorn, Crataegus phaenopyrum. Crataegus is a big old genus, on further research I've decided to not to hazard a guess on the number of species, we don't want any trolling from a Crataeger nerd with a thorn in their side on the first post. I have to say of all the tree collections I've visited the only phaenopyrum I can myself recall noting is this handsome bugger in the carpark at Harcourt. There's some good thorns that deserve wider attention from those that don't know. On writing this I'm reminded of a Crataegus schraderiana we had in a client's Aboretum in Somerset, crazy dark purple fruits almost black, quite the spectacle, it however didn't fruit reliably maybe due to variable summer temperatures. Get a Hilliers, get to Hilliers (the Aboretum not the garden centre) and hug some trees.