When is the best time?

Cut for the sake of the red bloom

Hawthorns are generally all red-flowering variants of the hawthorn native to all of Europe. The 'Paul's Scarlet' variety of the two-pronged hawthorn Crataegus laevigata is considered to be the real hawthorn. It delights from May to June with its carmine-red, double panicle flowers.

For them, of course, he is so popular. Fortunately, he's anything but stingy with it. In a healthy state and in a sunny location, hawthorns radiate their typical carmine-red flower dress far into the country in early summer.

In general, the hawthorn is very easy to care for and gives the joy of blossoming almost free of charge. But you can still support them: by making the pruning, which is usually necessary in the garden for reasons of space and shape, at the right time.

Cutting at the right time

You should cut a hawthorn once a year to keep it from growing too bulky and spreading. This will firstly keep him in shape, secondly you give him a regular makeover and thirdly, encourage willing flower formation in the coming year - but only if you are not too late cut.

The flowers for the next season begin soon after the old flowers have bloomed and are easily cut away when pruning the shape. You are sitting on the two-year-old wood, the long shoots of which invite you to shorten it. As a result, valuable flowering potential is quickly lost. So make sure that you grab the scissors as soon as possible after the flowering phase, around July.

Is it also possible without a cut?

If there is enough space, you can also let your hawthorn grow how it wants. As long as it gets a lot of sun, it also forms many flowers, which then do not give such a compact picture due to the sparser habitus.

Since the hawthorn is very easy to cut, it can also be cut back radically at larger intervals. It then sprouts vigorously again in the next spring, but you will have to do without flowers in the first early summer.