My lovely Silver Birch

[Kaz]

has had to be cut down - it had a serious fungal problem all the way through it

The guy who comes every year to trim back our trees, and a few of our neighbours' trees, came today. He's made a cracking job of our Red Robin trees, reshaping them into a nice round ball shape, and trimming back the trees behind our decking (not sure what they are) but I had a gorgeous Silver Birch down the side of the house and now it's gone It looks really bare on there, but it couldn't be helped, as soon as he started cutting it back he spotted the problem, and it was incurable

[TheOstrich]

That's really sad, Kaz, sorry to read that. They are indeed lovely trees, we had one in the back garden here, but they grow very rapidly and it very quickly became entangled with the neighbouring oaks, so we had to take the decision to lop it down ......

[JoM]

That is a shame. We've got two in our side garden, which the builders planted. They'll have to come out at some point though because they're positioned where we'll need to widen the drive if/when the boys get cars.

[Kaz]

They do grow very quickly, this one was only about 6/7 years old, the same age as the house

Jo apparently there can be issues with roots as well, according to our tree man, so keep an eye on them xxx

[JoM]

Thanks for that Kaz, with a small garden it's a concern as nothing's far from the house. We had a lot of trees at our old house but they were all at the end of the long garden so were never a worry.
I think I mentioned a while ago that him next door has planted a maple right up against the fence (our boundary responsibility) about 8 feet away from the house and a flowering cherry a fence panel away from our garage, again right against the fence

[miasmum]

When I lost my poplars I bought two silver birches and a robinia Sadly my robinia died, but the birches are looking lovely. I was told birches don't have a root problem, as obviously that was big concern of mine having lost the poplars

[JoM]

I remember you losing your poplars Shell

A big regret I had when moving was that I had to leave my trees behind. We had a maple which we bought with money my parents gave us on our 1st wedding anniversary, a lovely column flowering cherry that I planted in memory of someone, a copper beech we planted the day before Joe was born, silver birches that my Dad and Tom had picked out from a favourite area of countryside of mine when they were little more than a foot tall, fir trees that Santa had given to the boys when they saw him at the forestry commission tree sales...there were others too and with the garden we had there we could get away with having trees but here the garden's far too small and wherever they were planted could potentially cause problems for us and our neighbours, whether it be the roots or blocking out light. I wish our neighbour could see that because he's planted trees all around the edges of his back garden (I think that really he should live in a detached house far away from the nearest neighbour), close to our house, to the house on the other side and also to the house which is built at a right-angle to our back gardens. I think the first problem encountered will be damaged fences because he really has planted them right up against the fence posts and as they grow and expand they're going to push onto those.

[Kaz]

Shell I remember that, and yours too Jo

The tree guy is a tree surgeon, and I'm just passing on what he told Mick about the potential problem with silver birch roots Shell - for myself I wouldn't have a clue

[Aggers]

I know quite a bit about trees, and quite a lot about the larger fungi, and
I'm surprised that a silver birch tree that young was affected sufficiently to
need felling. Normally they only succumb to fungal attack after about 50 years.

Silver Birch trees naturally bleed a lot of sap when cut, and in fact the sap can
be used to make a very good wine.

[saundra]

dont tell debnih