Our friend has warned us against planting a hawthorn boundary hedge. What can we use instead?
13.07.2024 - 05:45
/ irishtimes.com
/ Fionnuala Fallon
Q: We were planning on using a native hawthorn as a boundary hedge around our country garden. But a friend has warned us off it, saying that there’s a disease spreading throughout Europe that’s killing hawthorn trees and hedges. Should we use something else instead? Kate H, Co Wicklow
A: Your friend is correct in that some hawthorn plants (Crataegus monogyna, or whitethorn as it’s also commonly known) in parts of Europe are being struck down with a very destructive, contagious, notifiable bacterial disease known as fire blight (Erwinia amylovora) that also affects other members of the very large Rosaceae family including apple, pear, cotoneaster, photinia, medlar, quince and rowan. Sadly, there’s no cure for it, the only recommended solution being to destroy all affected plants as well as any potential host plants in the close vicinity.
Fire blight is not a new disease, having spread to Europe from North America in the 1950s. But up until a few years ago there were very rigorous and careful checks in place to stop its spread through Europe. Unfortunately, those biosecurity checks are no longer as strict and there is now a much greater risk of infected plants being unwittingly imported into Ireland and spreading it.
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There have been 17 cases confirmed in Ireland in 2023 including in urban areas, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the countless kilometres of native hawthorn hedges that are such a defining and integral element of the Irish landscape as well as for the free-standing “sceachs” or fairy trees nurtured for generations.
In what can only be described as a bitter irony, that risk to the Irish rural landscape as well as to Irish
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