On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 18:02:09 +0000, Emery Davis wrote:

Sadly a lovely mature hawthorn in our front garden blew over partially a
couple of weeks ago during the storms. It's just finishing blooming
now,
and I'm wondering what I can do immediately with it; the branches are
blocking a door.

My immediate thought was to lighten the crown quite a bit, taking off
the lower hanging branches. I don't know if it can be pushed upright,
what do people think? Also the spot is difficult to get at with the
tractor. Since the trunk is only perhaps 15-20 degrees off of true, my
thought is it might be able to stay as is. I should mention that
perhaps 10 years ago it blew over, but as it was smaller I was able to
get it back into place and stake it. The secondary stakes have been
gone for 5 or 6 years now, I thought it was solid...

Can I start this major pruning now, or would it be much better to wait
for high summer, or indeed winter? It's a bit inconvenient as it is!

Thanks for any advice,

-E

As already noted they can be pruned back brutally and survive.

Depending on how far over it is I would have thought a lot of the roots
might have torn out of the ground, so reducing the amount of foliage might
be a very good thing to do, especially if it remains hot and dryish.

Firstly to note that I am not a tree surgeon :-)

However if it has blown over it is obviously carrying too much top growth
for the roots to hold in place.

So logically it should be cut back severely to reduce the overall height
to take the weight off the roots, and give them some time to recover and
get a grip.

If you cut it back quite a lot, you may be able to jack the trunk back
upright if you can brace a jack against a stake or some other fairly
immoveable object.

I assume it will be easier to straighten if it isn't very tall.

Cheers

Dave R