How to Prune a Hawthorn Tree? A Detailed Guide to Pruning Methods

Hawthorn is a fruit with a sour, slightly sweet taste that can be eaten raw or made into preserved fruit and fruit cakes. The hawthorn tree is a deciduous tree, so what are the pruning methods for hawthorn?

1. Growth Habits of the Hawthorn Tree

The hawthorn tree is a deciduous tree of the Rosaceae family, genus Crataegus, also known as shanliguo, shanlihong, suanlihong, shanlihongguo, suanzao, hongguo, hongguozi, shanlinguo, and so on. It mainly grows on mountain slopes at altitudes of 100-1500 m, at the edges of forests, or in thickets.

Hawthorn is a tree species with relatively strong adaptability. It likes to grow in cool, humid environments, and the suitable growth temperature range is also relatively wide. It is a plant that is both cold-resistant and heat-tolerant, so hawthorn is generally distributed in barren hills and bare ridges, sunny slopes, semi-sunny slopes, valleys, and other places. Hawthorn is not strict about soil requirements, but it grows relatively well in soil that is deep, fertile in texture, loose, and well-drained.

However, to grow hawthorn, you also need to do a good job with field management such as watering, fertilizing, and weeding, so that the hawthorn can grow better.

2. Pruning Methods for Hawthorn

Hawthorn is generally pruned in winter and summer:

Winter pruning generally follows the principle of combining thinning, shortening, and heading back. Dead branches, diseased branches, and other branches are cut off to encourage new branches, making the other branches stronger.

Summer pruning requires pinching back and thinning branches of the hawthorn, removing improperly positioned and overly vigorous vegetative branches, and pinching back the canopy to promote the formation of flower buds.

3. Medicinal Value of Hawthorn

1. Hawthorn is warm in nature and can help digest food accumulation, disperse blood stasis, and expel tapeworms, etc.;

2. Hawthorn can also be used for symptoms such as meat food retention, stomach distension and fullness, diarrhea and abdominal pain, and blood stasis amenorrhea;

3. It also has a certain therapeutic effect on treating lower back pain and leg pain in the elderly, as well as lower abdominal pain caused by cold-damp qi.