Pyracantha (angustifolia?)
It took me three years to figure out what this shrub planted on the far side of the house up against the fence is!
Creamy white flower clusters, narrow glossy green foliage, orange red berries -- and then I discovered the thorns. This is a pyracantha or firethorn. Look what it turned into:
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| 2023 |
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| July 10, 2022 |
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| May 21, 2021 |
When we moved in there was a little twig of nothing -- a self seeded weed, perhaps? -- growing smack in front of the fence at the blind alley on the side of the house, where the meters are.
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| Summer, 2017 when we first moved in. You can't even see the twig in front of the fence! |
Two years later it was growing big and weedy. What the heck was it? I thought it might be a seedling from the nearby New Mexico privets, but it was so centered on the fence it looked planted.
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| September 19, 2019 |
I never watered or tended it, not even once in the first years we were here. It probably got water from the Peggy Martin rose on the other side of the fence, which I watered a lot, though. I totally ignore the front side of the house, and ignored the plant, whatever it was.
Then, in May 2020, I wandered over to that side and saw it blooming.
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| May 16, 2020 |
In summer 2020 it grew like crazy and when I saw the thorns and the orange berry clusters, I finally identified this as pyracantha. It's a popular plant in this area, mostly grown trained up a trellis, but it grows well on its own as a spreading shrub, and it was obviously planted just before we bought the house.
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| September 13, 2020 |
Thank goodness it's on the far side of the fence where I rarely go -- the thorns are nasty. It's a nice enough filler in this blind alley by the meters. I've pruned it and will continue to keep it shaped. It will get to about 8 feet tall I think.