Should I remove or save my hawthorn?
Hawthorn isn't a habitual problem species, so a sound one is usually worth an opinion before it comes out. Hawthorn is the tree that changes the job plan rather than the risk assessment — thorns running an inch to several inches long mean full arm protection, hand protection and a slow, careful drag-out, so a 20-foot hawthorn realistically prices like a much larger tree. It is not a hazard species; it is a labor and PPE species.
How to tell which one you've got
Cedar-hawthorn rust and cedar-quince rust hit it every wet spring in a state full of eastern redcedar — bright orange-yellow leaf spots, often with a black dot at the center, sometimes enough to defoliate a branch. That is an appearance problem and the tree lives; fire blight is what kills it, and you tell them apart by color and shape: orange spots mean alive, while black scorched shoot tips hooked into a shepherd's crook with dead leaves still clinging mean cut back hard into clean wood.
The structural question
Dense, low, wiry and short-limbed, hawthorn rates intermediate for ice damage and almost never produces a whole-tree failure or a limb on a roof. What glaze actually does to hawthorn is splay the multiple stems outward and bend the leaders over, so post-storm hawthorn work is usually restorative pruning and stem removal rather than a takedown.
Related
- How much does it cost to remove a hawthorn?→
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- Is my hawthorn dying or just stressed?→
- How does a hawthorn hold up in a storm?→
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