This Hawthorn was collected from an area of marshy land in the Winter of 2000/01. The continually wet and poor draining soil had kept the tree naturally small; the trunk had grow upwards through the surrounding vegetation and then grown across it, towards the right. 

When lifted from the ground, I found that the rootball was very dense and compact, again due to the ground that it was growing in. As the ground never dried out throughout the growing season, there was no need for the root system to extend far from the base of the trunk in search of moisture.

Based on the annual rings counted on the chopped trunk, I would realistically age the tree at around 20 years. As the trunk spent its life in the ground surrounded by grass and sphagnum moss it has already started to develop good bark texture.

By the Summer of 2002, the tree had put on enough vigorous growth to allow me to trim back unwanted growth and apply a branch bender to the cascading branch.

Winter 2002. The tree is styled and repotted.

Summer 2003. Fed heavily this year to hopefully promote some flowers next May!

3 years later, July 2006. There have been a few changes to this tree in the past 3 years; unfortunately none of which I photographed until now.

Firstly, during 2004, the trunk was chopped leaving only the cascading first branch. The cascading branch was also shortened considerably.

The tree was been potted into a new crescent pot by Erin Pottery in 2005 and the former back became the new 'front'.

 

Height of tree is now 7" with an overall width (from trunkbase to tip of the cascading branch) of 16".