Adhesive categories provide an abstract framework for the algebraic approach to rewriting theory, where many general results can be recast and uniformly proved. However, checking that a model satisfies the adhesivity properties is sometimes far from immediate. In this paper we present a new criterion giving a sufficient condition for M,N-adhesivity, a generalisation of the original notion of adhesivity. We apply it to several existing categories, and in particular to hierarchical graphs, a formalism that is notoriously difficult to fit in the mould of algebraic approaches to rewriting and for which various alternative definitions float around.