Short story of my little Birch

Further truth....

You had it in a "finished" state.

A state that all trees only spend a little time in.

The only difference is, while others are full and bushy in an unshowable state.
This one is the opposite.
A little lacking for branching.

It obviously wants to live.

Sorce
 
Birch was not behaving well last year. I was loosing inner growth and only peripheral branches were surviving. I was not happy about its development. I thought I knew where is the problem. It was in the pot for way too long, not repotted. It was in its pot with not much edited root ball since being collected from wild back in 2010. Plan was to repot in March 2017, do decent root work and then see what's going to happen.

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It was done, as you can see bunch of thick roots were removed. Some of the old original soil removed as well. I had feeling I went too far by doing such amount of rootwork. Fortunately, tree was doing good. Apart that it was target of massive aphid attack, which was managed in spring with RockEffect. I was tempted to use insecticide but I resisted. (Yeah, I used insecticides in my garden zero times. No fungicides as well...).
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Now, about design. I was planning to do weeping birch long ago. But I did not wanted to have weeping primary and secondary branches. I consider it unnatural. Since I believe that natural birches grow pattern is upwards with main trunk, sub trunks and primary/secondary branches. Just after that ends of new growth is in weeping pattern. Problem with this tree was, I had never enough tertiary branches to creates such design. And with natural dieback of secondary branches it was quite challenging to find enough branches to create it. Decision was made this summer to go forward with branches I have available and I will see what reaction of the tree will be. Tree was wired in two stages during last weeks. Now it will stay like this until October I guess, when all wires will go off. Im curious how much of the current branch structure will survive winter.
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Very cool! It's good to see someone else working the species
 
Good work on this tree Maros. I also like birch. Short lived from what I understand but they are beautiful! At the US National last year, a really wonderful birch snagged top price for best deciduous.


Do we know how well they air layer? I have a weeping one in my garden that I'd like to layer.
 
MACH5 said:
Good work on this tree Maros. I also like birch. Short lived from what I understand but they are beautiful! At the US National last year, a really wonderful birch snagged top price for best deciduous.


Do we know how well they air layer? I have a weeping one in my garden that I'd like to layer.
Click to expand...
Thanks Sergio.
Post pictures of winning Birch from National if you have some.

I thought they are pretty rare but I have seen couple of good ones myself over the years.

Regarding layers, I have no idea honestly. Never seen any post on that. But, it is definitely strong root grower. Adapted to harsh conditions, so I just guess it is possible.
 
I don't know if I asked this here before but has anyone seen a red leafed birch before?
I had one in the yard my wife bought me once. Small red leaves and got white bark inba year from a whip.
She got it from Gurneys and I haven't seen one since.
I killed it with a weed whacker.
 
M. Frary said:
I don't know if I asked this here before but has anyone seen a red leafed birch before?
I had one in the yard my wife bought me once. Small red leaves and got white bark inba year from a whip.
She got it from Gurneys and I haven't seen one since.
I killed it with a weed whacker.
Click to expand...
On purpose or....:rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
M. Frary said:
Ahhhh. So it begins.
I worked with birches in the landscape nursery business. We only had a survival rate of about half on just transplanting. Pines survived better. Also the ones that did survive dropped branches like crazy afterwards. They don't seem to like too much roots cut off at once and don't like to have them restricted too much. We never put them in buckets when we got them. We had to put them in the ground in order to get a good survival rate. But when dug up after being in the ground a couple years and transplanted they would just die.
After too much of that we didn't mess with any birch trees. The ones that I put in the ground are still there when I drive by. Some of them anyway.
Some trees,no matter how much we wish to be bonsai just don't make the cut for some reason or another. I see it here all the time. Eastern White pine. Red maple. Willow. Poplars or cottonwood. Wild cherry. Birches. None are good bonsai candidates. People know this but yet they still try because they think they have what it takes to make them work.
The trees are the problem though. Not the people. No matter what you do or tell yourself none of the trees listed above and more do not make for good bonsai. Yeah maybe there is a red maple that Art Joura has been working on. It's giant. How many others. EWP? Forget about it. Popel trees? Willows? Come on.
I know I'm coming off as harsh. It's the truth. Maros is coming to realize he has spent a lot of time on a tree that is probably going to be dead in a year or two. It sucks but it's the truth. He can see the time coming when it will just die no matter what he does. I'm sorry Maros but deep down you know. It's a shame but it is a great learning lesson for everyone else trying to use these trees.
And this was a very nice birch bonsai. Sorry Maros.
Click to expand...

Since this thread got revived, I figure I'll throw in my 2 cents on this old comment since I never saw it the first time. This tree doesn't look like a tree that's going to be dead in a year or two, and not sure why the doom and gloom on birch. I work on them too, and while they are finicky about certain things, they absolutely work as potted trees. I have a few of them (river birch, specifically), and one in particular I've been playing around with for years now, and it improves every year.

I've just learned to work it very slowly. If you work them too fast they definitely drop branches. I ramify them by chasing the foliage down the branch rather than pruning hard and re-growing. They back bud reasonably well under those circumstances. It takes a while, but they develop really nice, natural looking branches over time. They also don't mind a bit of root work, although I try not to do too much at once on general principle.

The biggest complaint I've heard is that they aren't very long-lived. But I've not killed one yet, and I don't see any reason right now that the ones I have won't outlive me. Beyond that, it's somebody else's problem. And if I'm just building sand castles, so be it ... but they're going to be beautiful sand castles. =)
 
Just a observation, but the white birches seem to drop branches while yellow birch doesn't as much. Maybe it's just the location. As i only have one air layered yellow birch i don't know how they work in a pot much...hopefully the new air layered roots harden off enough to make it over winter. Air layer took me 2 years.
 
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