Collecting a Crataegus next spring

[Javaman4373]

I want to collect this small Hawthorn next spring. Most of its foliage and branches are near the top. What are your suggestions for developing this tree? Should it be grown in full sun without pruning or chopping for a season or two, or chopped to promote buds on the lower trunk? We have a lot of big hawthorns on the farm and they generate small progeny around them, but most are just straight trunks and not that interesting to want to collect them.

 

[leatherback]

I would chop where the movement ends, and the straight part begins.
For me, hawthorn do not close bigger wounds, and I would grow this one through a series of growing and cutting, avoiding cuts of larger than say half an inch.

but there are loads of brits on this forum, who are in hawthorn heaven, they might have different experience.