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Johnstone is the second-largest town in Renfrewshire, a former cotton-spinning and engineering community on the Black Cart Water where the flat Renfrewshire plain begins to rise toward the Gleniffer Braes and the hills above Lochwinnoch. The town centre of sandstone tenements and Victorian commercial buildings is bounded to the south by the Canal Street and Johnstone Community Garden area; the Black Cart Water corridor to the north carries a productive mix of willow, elder and himalayan balsam through late summer. The Gleniffer Braes Country Park is accessible within minutes from the southern streets and adds heather, gorse, broom and bilberry on the open moorland above the town.

Hawthorn opens the Renfrewshire season in May on the lowland field boundaries between Paisley and the Clyde. White clover follows on the improved grasslands and golf course rough of the Clyde valley from June through July. Sycamore and lime are productive in the Paisley park belt, the Finlaystone and Milliken Park estate woodlands, and the West End villa gardens through June and July. Himalayan balsam is the defining late-summer flow: the Cart Water, Black Cart, Calder and Gryfe all carry dense stands from mid-July into September. Bramble is abundant on former industrial and railway land across the central towns. On the Gleniffer Braes and the Renfrewshire hills above Lochwinnoch, heather provides a late-summer supplement for those willing to move colonies to the moor.