Plant · P-403

Sloe

Prunus spinosa

Sloe is the dense, thorny, suckering shrub behind the classic laid hedgerow of Europe, tough enough to hold a stock-proof field boundary in salt-laden coastal wind where most fruiting shrubs give up. The fruit is far too astringent to eat raw but makes sloe gin, jelly, syrup and conserve, while the very early bare-wood bloom feeds pollinators before almost anything else is flowering. Left to sucker, it builds its own thorn thicket for free - useful for a hedge, a problem for an orchard floor unless it's kept to a mown or grazed margin.