Height Reduction -Silver Birch

James Watt

Hi

As a separate question for people here, is there anything that can be done to
reduce or slowdown the height of these trees.





As you can see from the photos, the trees are about 4-5m. From what I can gather here, pruning work is done to tidy up or balance the crown of trees but not so much to simply constrain height to a certain height.

I assume one can not simply reduce the top parts of the main stem or surrounding branches as that would be a hack job.

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Leif Raukleiv

That's a good question! I have thought it over several times since I saw your first post about silver birch. These trees may be quite big. Are they suitable as hedge trees without any chopping or pruning?
I do not know if birch is a native tree in Australia, or if it is planted as park or hedge tree. They normally starts to rot at an age of 80-100 years, but then they have become quite big. I have several of them. Here in Europe birch is a common tree. It grows almost anywhere and on any soil. In dry places, on sand, clay, in moors, in cracks in rocks where nothing should be expected to grow.
My neighbour has pruned a birch to comlete circular form. I'll make a picture anoyher day.
Here we have two sorts of birch: Betula pubescens and B. pendula. The only difference seems to be the hanging branches on the pendula.
I am going to cut down a big birch, but just now it is too much snow for my tractor.



This birch must be taken down. It has become too big, and it grows too near the house.


Betula pendula, hanging branches.
Leif.

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TrevMcRev

Hi James,

You could make light reduction cuts by just pruning out the tips back to a suitable growth point. I'm only talking about 300-400mm length with cuts that would be about 25mm dia or so. This is for the main leader, then the same thing can be applied even lighter on other branches.

However, Silver Birches are very poor compatmentalizers, meaning they decay rapidly from wounds, including pruning. I feel they are generally best left alone, other than very minor pruning as described, or for necessary clearance of wires, roofs etc.

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treefeller

I agree, they are common as muck over here,i would recommend a light prune as well as they dont recover to well

kiwi_tree_steve

How far away are those powerlines? out of interest, are they going to become an issue in time? if so can you look at a formative option now, to help eliminate the lines becoming a problem.

just a few thoughts to stir things up

steve

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MTS247

First thing you need to do is identify those lines (Phone, Austar, power) check with the your local power company, Because one day someone may "hack" the tops of those trees anyway.


Being carfull of power lines of course
You could prune 15-20cm off the end of every single branch.

Then when the branch grows, cut it back being very carfull to let the branches grow a little each season. so if a branch grows 20cm each year then remove 15cm each year = only growing 5cm per year.
Of course diferent parts of the tree will graw at diferent rates.

This should avoid any decay problems as you will only ever cutting new growth.

You may also want to remove every 2nd tree as they are all competing for light and forcing each other to grow fast.

What is your water availability like? because those trees dont like the dry.

Eric Frei

Jeez, how big can these trees grow in that spot then?

And is keeping them hedged an option?

Seems a poor choice for a hedging plant to me.

But I'm in Brisbane and have little experience with these trees form, seems kinda sparse to me for a hedge.

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Leif Raukleiv

The forum is called: Ask an arborist. Well, I am not one, but I have tried to post some opinions since birch is so common here, and I see how they grow naturally.
I have made a picture of my neighbours birch, pruned to a ball shape. He uses an electric hedge trimmer and ladder to keep it this way.
Some other neighbours have "pruned" in another way that probably would give you arborists nightmares: Just cutting the top off. It looks awfully, and you are right, this tree rots easily in bigger cuts. As I wrote earlier, at an age of 80-100 years they will rot anyhow.



If not pruned in some way or other, the grandchildren will have a 25 m high tree like this to deal with.


Here birch is the most popular firewood, and it gives the best ash for making lyefish. Besides that, it is an attractive wood for furniture and woodturning. "Flamebirch" is highly appreciated. Some birch is milled here, but most of the furniture birch used in Norway come from Finland. I guess it is Finnish birch in this bed.



Leif.

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Leif Raukleiv

Hello!
Now, most of the trees have become green, and for some time I've had an idea about posting some pics about birch. The discussion started when we had winter here, and making photos then wasn't simple.
Birch is very common on the northern hemisphere. Here in Norway it is the most common hardwood. It grows almost anywhere. I don' know if it is of some interest to show pics about this, but I'll take the chance.

At first a photo from a newspaper. A big birch fell down in a wind the other day, and a pupil became injured.
The roots broke off. Picture is a bit unclear about the reason, but I guess the tree, or the roots, are rotted.
A similar incident happened at our school a couple of years ago. A big birch broke off at the middle and the top destroyed a lamp when it fell. Happily no one was hurt.
Big birches must be followed closely. Sooner or later they start rotting.



Betula counts about 50 different species. The biggest ones may become 30 metres high, the smallest ones are not much more than weeds. It's difficult to see the difference between many of them. To do that, you need to be a specialist with a microscope, I think. Besides that, it's difficult to know if a tree really is a different sort, or if it has got it's shape because of the living conditions.
An exaple is the bush in this picture. I can remember this birch as I was a boy. It had about the same size then. It keeps itself alive, not much more. In dry periods it becomes brown, but is still alive next year.


In this picture there ia a small birch left, but in the background (arrow) there is another one, much smaller. Both are growing in a small crack in the cliff. Incredible that anything may live there at all.



So long, so far. May be i'll post some other pics later.
Leif.

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Apocalypsse

That looks very very familiar, looks exactly like this place around the corner from me. This wouldnt happen to be in Reservoir would it?

Eric Frei

Lets do a Google street view and find it, what street is it in?

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Apocalypsse

Aww, its 1 street away from Google street view. I drive past it every few days.

Leif Raukleiv

When grown up, they'll look like these ones, or higher.




Leif.

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Apocalypsse

What is your ultimate goal for these trees? Hedging them?