Hawthorn is one of the pome fruit plants, which are characterized by the fact that they are particularly pruning-tolerant and robust and regenerate quickly after a pruning. Hawthorn grows as a small tree, as a shrub or as a free-growing hedge.
Hawthorn is one of the fast-growing shrubs that you can already cut to a height of around 15 centimeters when planting. While you are only allowed to make topiary cuts in the summer months, you can use the winter months to cut back the hawthorn hedge more intensively.
The topiary of a hawthorn hedge
The topiary is the so-called summer pruning, with which you give the hawthorn hedge the desired shape in the early summer months. Out of consideration for the local wildlife, radical pruning is not permitted between March 1st and September 30th. Birds in particular prefer the hawthorn hedge as a nesting place, as the thorny branches protect the offspring from predators.
The shape cut is carried out in a trapezoidal shape. This means that the hedge gets narrower towards the top. In this way, your hedge remains permanently dense and, above all, healthy. If you cut the hawthorn hedge straight up, the lower area will become bare and lose density due to lack of light. In principle, the shape cut is only carried out in the new wood. The ideal time is late afternoon, when the summer temperatures gradually cool down. In this way, you ensure that the cutting points do not dry out too quickly and that the plant sap cannot drain from the cut branches into the trunk.
If it has to be: winter pruning of the hawthorn hedge
Before the more intensive winter pruning, please consider that the usually lush white flowers of the hawthorn only grow on perennial wood. However, if you would like to help your hawthorn hedge to grow more thickly, you can cut it back down to the old wood during the winter dormant phase, measured at the total height this is a maximum of one third of the hedge. During winter pruning, which should be completed by the end of February at the latest, pay attention to the outside temperatures, with a frost-free day being ideal.
When trimming the hawthorn hedge, use sharp garden tools to make clean cuts that allow the plant to regenerate quickly. If the cut surfaces are larger, you should treat the cut surface with a suitable wound closure agent. The reason is that every cut is symbolically an open wound through which germs and fungal spores can penetrate the plant.