What's with all the pink hawthorn flowers this year?

More than 50% of my hawthorn trees (out of 20 or so) have pink flowers this year. They were always white since I’ve been here. This seems to be true for my whole region, they’ve gone from almost always white to ⅓ to ½ of the trees going fully pink.

I wonder if there are known reasons or folk knowledge about this?

The only folk stuff I know about hawthorns are that a solo hawthorn in a field is a fairy tree and must not be cut down, and that a heavy set of haw fruit means a bitter winter. (There was a big fruit set last year but the winter wasn’t actually really mild).

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I’m not sure but i know two seperate friends who mentioned their roses were half different colors this year. When they mentioned it I thought it was a rootstock blooming.

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Check soil pH.

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These are hawthorn that were white in previous years and the effect is region wide. Would assume pH has remained constant.

I see you are in Ireland. Are you down wind from that recent Iceland volcano eruption? I could see a wide distribution of sulphur or some other stuff settling in if that is the case.

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Exactly, I was going to say probably more acidic rainfall this year for whatever reason, and an icelandic eruption is as good a reason as any I can think of