Sensory Explorations: Hawthorn

To begin this series of sensory explorations, I’ve chosen to begin with one of my favorite trees,  the Hawthorn.  The hawthorn is a great example of how one plant can create a dynamic sensory ecosystem with an ever evolving impact in the landscape.  From the white springtime blossoms and their unique smell, the safety and seclusion provided by the canopy, to the stark visual contrast and openness of the bare tree in winter, adorned with snow, ice, and vibrant red berries which can last well into the winter months.  The hawthorn provides a unique sensory experience with each season, and the low, dense canopy creates shelter and shapes spaces in the landscape.  

I’d like to walk you all through a year in the sensoryscape of a hawthorn.  One of the challenges to sensory design is its ephemeral nature.  From the changing of seasons, to the smaller week by week, day by day variations within each season, to things as small as changes in temperature, to shifts in the wind, the sensory experience of the landscape is dynamic, changing drastically over time, and sometimes in the moment.  This dynamic creates opportunities as well, The hawthorn has unique offerings at each stage of this cycle.

Springtime:

It’s March. The snow is melting, the birds are beginning to chirp again, and the trees are beginning to wake up.  A walk through the landscape will reveal a number of personalities.  We can see which plants are morning people, so to speak, while others fight to stay dormant just a little longer, until it feels safe.  The daffodils are pushing through, the hyacinths are blooming, and the hawthorn splashes the landscape with the bright green of new foliage.  This bright, lime-green foliage offers a visual relief to those of us who seem to be a little more eager than the plant world to be on the other side of winter.  As they open and unfold, their lush, bright canopy gives us something to look forward to as the world seems to come back to life.  

Darkening with age, the now dense foliage gives way to an even more spectacular show.  Come April-May, white blooms emerge all over the tree.  The delicate blossoms allow the hawthorn to once again brighten the landscape, arriving this time with a unique, and not universally loved, smell.  Sweet in a sickly sort of way, the off-putting aroma of a hawthorn in bloom is caused by the chemical trimethylamine, which is one of the first chemicals released by a decaying corpse.  Whether you fall to the love or hate side of the spectrum regarding the scent of hawthorn blossoms, it is important to note not only the smell, but that for those with sensory sensitivities to smell, the effect can be amplified.  While the trimethylamine released by the blossoms is not universally loved by humans, it is a great attractor of pollinators, and a hawthorn tree in May is often teeming with life.  

Come late May, we find ourselves at the transition into summer.  The leaves on the tree have darkened from their once vibrant color, and the petals of the blossoms dance lightly on the wind, softening the ground below in a sort of early summer snow.  In Japan they have a name for this moment; hanafubuki, meaning “flower snowstorm” and referring specifically to the moment the petals of the sakura rain down in the wind.  I’ve heard it said that “no petal falls more beautifully to the ground than that of the cherry tree.”  I think that of the hawthorn must come at a close second.

Summer:

And now we pass to summer.  The freshness of the foliage is gone, the blossoms have had their moment, and the apples are beginning to form.  The foliage shifts to a deep, lush green.  At this moment the character of the tree shifts.  No longer standing bright against the landscape, or adorning us with its scent, in summer the hawthorn takes a step back, allowing others to shine.  It is during this time, when the fresh green has darkened, the blossoms have fallen, and the red berries are yet to come into their fullness that the hawthorn goes from generating stimuli to absorbing it.  Dampening noise, absorbing light, and providing a sense of intimacy are the quiet, more reserved properties of the hawthorn during the summer months.

This is where my own sensory sensitivities come most into the conversation.  The low, lush canopy of the hawthorn creates a space which feels heavy, but protected.  Stooping down to get under the branches, one finds themselves in quiet seclusion.  For many with sensory sensitivities there comes a point where it all becomes too much, where we feel overwhelmed.  I have seen parks install “isolation pods” where kids can go to sit and decompress.  I never wanted to use one.  The hard plastic, as well as the social isolation which comes with the physical isolation of the hard pod can become a barrier to those of us who can already feel like outsiders.  However, the hawthorn provides a low canopy and sense of compression.  The foliage grows dense enough that the sounds of the now outside world become muffled, caught and dispersed by the canopy above.  Shaded, quiet, intimate, yet maintaining the ability to look out on the landscape from beneath the branches, there is a certain poetry that comes with reposing under a hawthorn.  

Dan Kiley - South Garden at the Art Institute of Chicago - Photos © 2013 Tom Harris

Benjamin Jensen: Designing Spectrums (2023)

The summer hawthorn, however, is not entirely contemplative, either.  Young hawthorns have smooth bark, but as they age it becomes cracked and eventually scaly.  This rough texture provides a tactile experience to those who choose to rest against it.  As well, while there are thorn-less varieties, it would be advisable to check for some of the rather prominent thorns before laying back against the trunk.  These factors may not encourage us all to rest against the trunk of a hawthorn, but the power of the hawthorn as a place maker can still be taken advantage of, as demonstrated by Dan Kiley in his south garden at the Art Institute of Chicago where a canopy of hawthorns over sunken paths quiet the hustle and bustle of the loop, creating a moment of peace alongside one of the cities busiest streets.

Autumn:

This character remains, with berries becoming a more prominent red throughout the summer months.  As summer turns to fall, and late September nights leave us with a hint of autumn frost, the character of the hawthorn shifts again.  Gone is the lush green of summer as the leaves shift to yellow, orange, red and purple.  Once again taking center stage, the hawthorn in autumn becomes a bold voice in the landscape.  While varying across species, they each serve to paint the landscape in color.  This return to a source of visual stimulation will last through winter, so long as the apples remain on the tree.  

Olfactory senses come back into play as well.  As October turns to November, and the leaves begin to fall our noses are met with the sweet smell of decay.  The aroma of autumn leaves, the crisp scent of a sunbaked leaf pile or the heavy aroma of wet leaves breaking down, is in no way limited to the hawthorn, but is a characteristic of deciduous trees in the fall.  As we walk along the autumn paths under the hawthorn, something else to note is the tactile sensation of the leaves underfoot.  Some species, like oaks, tend to have less stunning displays of color, but greet us with a satisfying crunch as we walk.  The hawthorn, like many trees with vibrant autumn displays, have leaves which remain soft, sometimes slick against pavement when tread upon.  Their beauty goes from painting the sky to painting the ground, with a slick bedding of leaves to be mindful of.

Winter:

With the first coming of snow, a hush falls over the landscape.  Many of the trees stand bare, their silhouettes clawing at the sky.  Each step is cushioned, as is the sound which they generate.  Every time a soft crunch which falls dead on the soft snowdrifts.  In this quiet, sometimes hollow feeling, the hawthorn shines its brightest.  The scarlet apples cling to the tree, defying the cold and wind to provide a burst of color and excitement against a sublime field of white.  A strong visual cue, nothing stands to challenge the hawthorn in January for the most prominent feature.  

While a winter landscape is not devoid of sensory stimuli, it does often feel dampened and muted.  The crisp air, the sting of the wind, the soft crunch of snow underfoot are all key features of the winter landscape, and ones which can disproportionately affect those with sensory sensitivities.  These sensory stimuli serve to balance the lack of visual and auditory stimuli, and the hawthorn can play more than one role in the winter landscape.

Beyond the sensory experiences associated with neurodivergence, something which goes a long way toward neuro-inclusivity is wayfinding.  Managed expectations, a clear sense of what is to come, where to go, and what that experience will be like are crucial for many people to have a stress free journey.  In a landscape where many defining features have faded to the background, and where paths may be covered with snow, wayfinding can take on a new importance.  What better way to signal the exit, or an important intersection, than a bright pop of red against the snow?  

While more and more as the planet warms and these snowy dream-scapes I’ve described fade to distant memory, the hawthorn stands out in my memories as a champion of winter; few trees have inspired more awe in me than a hawthorn in January, adorned with scarlet apples, each bejeweled with a short icicle, glistening red in the sunlight.  

Soon the icicles begin to melt; the last apples which still cling to the tree become an important food source for cardinals and other birds which decide to stick it out up north through the winter months.  As the last apple falls and the snow melts away, the first leaf buds appear, ready to spring forth and repeat the year long dance once again.

Closing Thoughts:

Sensory sensitivities can take many forms, from hyper (overly) sensitive, to hypo (under) sensitive.  Many people with sensory sensitivities experience both, varying by sense, stage of life, and many other factors.  With studies showing that as many as 1 in 20 people experience some form of sensory sensitivity, it’s not as rare as we might think.  The first step toward designing a sensorially inclusive place is just to understand that not everyone experiences the world in the same way.  We see this when we design for physical accessibility, and we have guidelines and toolkits to help us in the endeavors of creating physically accessible spaces.  

Once we see the need, once we learn more about what it means to experience sensory sensitivities and what needs arise from them, naturally the next question is how do we address this?  It requires that we see the need for sensory inclusion, and incorporate the senses into our design process.  The choices we make in design each have an impact, from the materials we chose, the forms we design with them, and the plants we populate it with.  Once we see the need for a more sensorially inclusive design approach, we need the tools and understanding of the sensory impacts of our design choices.  I hope that the walk we’ve all just taken with the hawthorn has shed some light not only on this one tree, but on the dynamic sensoryscape tied to each plant, and the world of possibilities behind them.