I call this our piss plant because of the sharp smell. However, the bees love it. There'll be at least a hundred bees of various types on it at any given time when it's blooming, and it you can hear the buzzing from morning till night. I've got lithodora and beebalm near it that are normally covered in bees, but when this is blooming they ignore them. It has red tinged leaves and medium-sized red berries later.
It self seeded. We didn't plant it. We're in NW Washington State in a heavily wooded, coastal area. I don't recall seeing it in the native woods.
It's getting pretty large for the space. Can it be trimmed and if so when should it be done?
by billrm455
2 Comments
I think it’s some kind of ornamental pear, like Callery or Bradford. They’re well known for smelling absolutely awful and are non-native.
It very much looks like a hawthorn. Smells awful, produces pretty flowers and attracts a ton of bees. I planted one of these right near my walkway of a house I owned a number of years ago, I ended up removing it because I feared the bees would sting the kids. The arborist was thrilled to swap out threes with me.