Is a hawthorn a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Hawthorn can work here, with caveats. Multiple Crataegus species are Indiana natives and hawthorn is a classic central Indiana fencerow, roadside and old-field tree, often paired with eastern redcedar on limy ground; dotted hawthorn runs from south-central up through central and northern Indiana on glacial soils. The landscape standard, Winter King green hawthorn, was itself selected from a fence row near Vincennes, Indiana.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Small red pomes ripen in fall and many cultivars — Winter King notably — hold them into winter until birds finally clean them out, with the drops staining a walk or drive. The genuine nuisance is thorn litter: shed thorny twigs sit invisible in the turf, puncture mower and wheelbarrow tires, and get thrown by a mower deck, which is a real reason people remove an otherwise fine tree.
Where to keep it away from
Deep and tough once established, and that is exactly why hawthorn survives the sites that kill other small trees here — dry compacted clay strips, parking lot islands and salted tree lawns, since it turns up consistently on the salt-tolerant species lists. Cockspur and dotted hawthorn do particularly well on limy and glacial soils, which describes a lot of central Indiana ground.
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