Sloe Times on Planet Earth
April 12, 2026, 6:12 pm , by Richard Lutz
RICHARD LUTZ witnesses spring take its time to blossom
It’s mid April. But that doesn’t stop a late blast of winter. There’s not a breath of warmth in the mountain air.
It’s still cold. The gales from the southwest, from Ireland, still whip across southern Scotland. Snow blankets the high country.
In the empty Galloway Hills that surround remote Glen Trool, Craiglee’s flat top and its shoulder are dusted by snowfall and veiled and then unveiled by moving mist.
Below, for a moment, Loch Trool sits quiet, a cold blue jewel beneath cold hills:
Along its long shores, there are hints of more clement times. Look closely, lose a step. take a minute. There’s willow awakening:
and tough old witch hazel emerging:
….or is it the other way around? Or are they both hazel? Or willow? Maybe too early to tell. Even for my know-it-all phone app. Identities get muddled.
One thing is certain: no sign of early flowering blackthorn on the edge of this hill-bound loch. But further down in the valleys, its white flower is blooming and lining lanes and fields.
They will eventually blossom into sloe berries, a dark blue fruit that goes into making a fine drink, sloe gin.
Sloes don’t really come out until the summer (as seen by this photo taken five months from now with my future-cam) and they not only are used to add taste to your drink but also are renowned for herbal remedies. Remains of sloe berries, say historians, were found in Neolithic burial pits meaning it was known for its healing powers (or used in Stone Age cocktails) thousands of years ago, way before we raised our gin glasses.
But don’t confuse the blackthorn with the hawthorn. The latter awakens later, and from September throws out red berries.
The hawthorn bloom, also known as the Mayflower, is renowned for that ageless warning:
“Ne’er cast a clout ’til May is out”. That roughly translates as: “Don’t put away your clothes (your clout) until the flowers of the Hawthorn bush appear“.
Wise words indeed while sloshing around in Britain’s fickle spring weather. Keep something warm close by. Or at least something rain-proof.
You never know when a handy item of clout will keep you snug ‘til that hawthorn flowers. And come to think of it, even then….things can change so, ….good luck.
haws pic: David Wright/ Geograph; loch pic: Billy McCrorie
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Tina Mara
👍
Glasgow Boy
Captures the northern spring
Sara Forrester
Liked this piece about the seasons. But didn’t care about the dog stories
Russell Allen
😊
J. Qureshi
we didn’t know blackthorn is where sloe berries came from and that red berries came onto hawthorn.
Janine Jamieson
Sloe times indeed
Alan Holland
I always thought the saying meant the end of the month of May! Makes much more sense now.
Sloes, plainly not good medicine (had a flash of Cheyenne chief there) if the patient is buried with them and why anyone would turn decent gin into pink cough medicine has always eluded me.
SW
think both of your photos of the catkins seem to be of the Grey willow. See attached for more details….
https://www.treeguideuk.co.uk/willows/
The witch-hazel flowers have a different structure…
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