Why hasn’t spindle become a garden shrub of choice?
COUNTRY FILE
PERHAPS you have noticed, as I have, the bright pink patches in so many of our hedgerows this autumn, and when you stopped for a closer look you found slender branches laden with pretty, heart-shaped berries.
This is the spindle tree. Well, it would be if it was allowed to grow to its full size – it is a spindle bush, and no more – but then again I think that if all the bushes and shrubs along the roadside were allowed to attain full stature the spindle would probably be overgrown and struggle to put on a show at all.
As it is, the annual cutting of hedges probably does it good.
It grows pretty quickly and responds to being trimmed by putting out a large number of side shoots, and at this time of year it looks glorious.
It is so pretty that I do wonder how it hasn't become a garden shrub of choice. One reason might be that the fruit is poisonous, although how toxic it might be is anybody's guess.
Although most authorities warn against consuming any part of the spindle, I can find no record of confirmed poisoning.
Birds feed on the fruit with impunity, and spread the seeds in their droppings. I'm not sure if the birds eat the orange fruit capsules or only the crimson berries that become exposed when the capsules ripen and split.
Those berries act as both laxative and purgative, meaning that if they don't get you one way, they'll surely get you the other.
The best idea is to leave them well alone. Cut a green shoot if you must, then peel the bark and take in that peculiar, rather unpleasant smell, which alone ought to tell you the tree, while pleasing to the eye, is certainly no good for the table.
Still, it is a poor thing that has no use at all and the spindle has, or at least had, its own value.
The yellowish wood is tough and hardwearing, and especially so when properly dried. Fresh cut, it is easily split and yields easily to the turner's chisel. It was long the timber of choice when it came to making spindles for spinning wheels.
Other than that, it makes durable skewers for cooking whatever gets cooked on a skewer (another name given the plant was skewerwood), and I believe it was once widely used to make the stems of tobacco pipes.
One thing this bush needs to survive is plenty of lime in the soil, which is why we see it a lot less in the west and northwest of Mayo, while in the south it is almost common.
I wonder if those who wrought a living from more acidic land would buy stems of spindle? Or would they make do with blackthorn or some other wood? Perhaps someone knows.
In this world of plastic the spindle has become little more than a curiosity, and if the world were to keep going the way it is no doubt we should soon lose all appreciation for tradition and altogether forget what was once commonplace.
If you haven't yet become acquainted with the pretty spindle tree, watch out for those bright colours along the roadside.
Stop, take a look; better, take a few berries and sow them in pots of lime-rich compost. Leave them out in the weather and watch for pale green shoots in the spring.
If they grow, plant them out in that corner of the garden you always meant to do something with but never did. In three or four years time you'll be rewarded with an extraordinary splash of colour and, if you choose to avail of it, a most useful wood.