Hawthorn Monitoring Project

This summer, the Tree Council is promoting an initiative designed to assess and monitor the health of the UK’s hawthorn hedges. Hawthorn trees are the backbone of UK hedgerows, making up around 70% of their structure. These hedgerows are vital for biodiversity, habitat connectivity and carbon storage, and therefore important for meeting environmental targets.

However, despite the importance of hawthorn, its resilience to pests, diseases, and climate change remains poorly understood. More research is required to understand how hawthorn vulnerability poses wider risks to the treescape. For example, hawthorn is a host species for the fireblight pathogen that can then be passed on to apple and pear orchards.

Why are we telling you this? Because you can help! The Tree Council is asking for any member of the public (over 18 years old) to assist with sampling hawthorns across the country. The idea is to take samples of hawthorns and send them to the Tree Council for assessment. In this way, they hope to get a much clearer picture of the spread of diseases and also to know which hedgerows are healthy. If you are interested, a comprehensive sampling protocol can be found here: https://treecouncil.org.uk/guidance-resources/hawthorn-sampling-protocol/

The best time for sampling is during the summer months, from now through to the end of September. If you have any questions, please ask our tree warden, Mark Dawkins, who can be reached by direct message through the St Martha’s Tree warden Instagram account: st_martha’s-tree-warden.