Silver birch

 
How hardy are silver birch trees. We have one that is close to our house
and getting tall enough that it could start hitting our eaves in a
strong wind.


I am going to take the top-most bows off with a saw but I don't want to
do any permanent damage




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themoneyspider

 On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:25:02 +0000, themoneyspider


No trees should be planted so close to a structure that they can reach
out and touch.  I would suggest moving the tree while it's still
relatively small, birch do not respond well to top pruning, besides
looking shabby it will send up lots of new shoots from its base

 wrote:

I agree with Brooklyn1.

 wrote:

I agree with Brooklyn1.

 
themoneyspider;933779 Wrote:

They are exceedingly hardy - it's the national tree of Finland!  But I
don't think it is its cold-tolerance you are interested in.  Birch wood
is quite physically weak, that might be what interests you.


You can prune them hard and they recover.  I once had one that split
into two trunks not far above the ground level, and I didn't want that.
I cut one of the two trunks off, effectively removing nearly half the
tree, and it just grew away fine, it even straighted up so you'd never
know it had once been two-stemmed.  Given they grow in very windy
places, like northern Norway, and aren't structurally very strong, they
clearly need to be able to recover from natural mechanical breakages.


I would wait until after its leaves have fallen off before topping it.
If you top it in the growing season, it will weep copious quantities of
sap.  Of course some people deliberately top them in the growing season
to collect the sap to make an alcoholic beverage, known as birch wine,
from it.




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echinosum