Birch - pruning dead branches immediately after collecting?

[80615]

Hi, just this week I collected a birch tree from the wild and placed it in a wooden box. I kept the rootball moist and placed it in a mix that is mostly made up of pumice with 15% bark. Due to my current living situation it only gets a around 4 hours of direct sunlight in the afternoon, but this will improve when summer arrives. It is richly watered daily as the soil drains very fast.

I have three questions for anyone more experienced with birches:

1. Will it be counterproductive to the recovery of the tree if remove dead branches/dry budless branches so soon after collection?

2. Should I defoliate or prune in the first growing season in order to avoid branch dieback of the lower branches? I plan on doing a trunk chop in a few years (granted that the tree survives)

3. There are some mixed information on when to start fertilizing collected trees, but most sources say to not start until the second growing season. Is this valid for birch?

Cheers

 

[Dysfunctional Vet]

Hi, just this week I collected a birch tree from the wild and placed it in a wooden box. I kept the rootball moist and placed it in a mix that is mostly made up of pumice with 15% bark. Due to my current living situation it only gets a around 4 hours of direct sunlight in the afternoon, but this will improve when summer arrives. It is richly watered daily as the soil drains very fast.

I have three questions for anyone more experienced with birches:

1. Will it be counterproductive to the recovery of the tree if remove dead branches/dry budless branches so soon after collection?

I cut dead branches from my freshly collected birches, but I leave a nub. I save that for next year.

2. Should I defoliate or prune in the first growing season in order to avoid branch dieback of the lower branches? I plan on doing a trunk chop in a few years (granted that the tree survives)

I don’t defoliate, but I will nip tips and try to keep one section/branch from over performing. I wait for the first growth to harden off and the secondary shoots start extending before I start any trimming. I’ve killed a few branches starting too early.

3. There are some mixed information on when to start fertilizing collected trees, but most sources say to not start until the second growing season. Is this valid for birch?

Cheers

If my birch is growing strong, no die back or wilting. I will lightly fertilize in August, wait for response, September a little more and then start normal fertilizing the next spring.
My birches are all paperbark and have been collected from my yard. Beware, birches do not react the way maples do. Early spring chops are bad in my experience and cause massive die backs. I do large chops in May-June. Good luck! It’s a beautiful tree.

 

[Shibui]

No problem pruning dead or dying branches. They are dead so cannot affect the tree.

Defoliation and pruning just limit the amount of food a tree can produce. New roots need food so pruning can be detrimental to recovering trees. That broad statement needs to be qualified: Trees that are growing well in summer have obviously recovered from transplant and can be treated as other trees. I routinely trim trident maples several times in the summer after transplant if they are growing well.

There's mixed information on most aspects of bonsai. Much of it comes from people who don't have a lot of first hand experience and are just quoting something they heard/read/thought they heard/read. Different fertilizers have different effects. Plants do not require a constant flow of fertiliser. They can make do with stored nutrients for weeks or even months so NOT using fert on recent transplants won't usually hurt. I've found that using fert on transplants also does not seem to hurt. Controlled release fert (osmocote and others) is in almost all commercial potting soil but millions of plants are transplanted and survive each year. I've personally never had any problem with fertiliser on recent transplants but I'd avoid really strong mixtures for a few weeks.