A birch tree is a joy for any autumn garden as winter hibernation sets in.
The tree’s broad, open habit is a graceful feature with its pendulous stems and branches elegantly cascading downwards. At the same time, small diamond-shaped leaves cast shade, not gloomy darkness and let you gaze beyond. So gentle light highlights the birch’s compellingly tactile white, cream or yellow bark.
At this time of year in particular, I’m drawn to a towering silver birch, Betula pendula, we planted nearly 40 years ago. Surviving an early mishap to the trunk, it has formed two majestic white ones that enhance the surrounding area with a yellow blaze of foliage lit by a low winter sun against a lowering sky.
But, be warned. This statuesque feature has grown slowly to a full 20 metres, as does the American B. papyrifera, paper birch, and our more common Scottish species, downy birch, B. pubescens. Silver birch prefers more free-draining soil, while the downy species tolerates our wetter Scottish weather. Although there are dwarfing cultivars, they’re hard
to track down and are often very expensive.
If you’ve enough space, birch is a tree to enjoy throughout the year, with each season bringing different attractive features.
In spring, beautiful long yellow male catkins adorn the pendulous, gently blowing stems. We’re then treated to a flush of unsurpassably beautiful lime-yellow leaves.
Ever resourceful folk have also capitalised on the tree’s rising sap, which reputedly makes a delightful drink and can be fermented to produce quaffable wine. But keen to experiment in my pursuit of a different beverage, I confess I couldn’t persuade my tree to part with its sap.
As summer develops, birch demonstrates why it’s an ideal garden tree. The drooping branches offer welcome shelter when we’re treated to fine,
hot weather. But the dappled shade lets us plant underneath in a way that would be impossible with most trees.
In fact, birch woods have long been the happy hunting grounds for botanists because they allow for unusually rich flora. In 1777, John Lightfoot delightedly described the choice orchids he had come across.
Opportunistic Scots have capitalised on birch’s slender sinuous twigs. Witches along with more normal house folk, would bind the twigs round a shaft to produce an ideal broomstick. The pliable twigs can be roped together and are still used for racecourse jumps.
And now gardeners can use birch twigs as brilliant plant supports in herbaceous beds. If you don’t believe me, visit the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. On a much more lowly scale, I bind tallish stems together to make the perfect climbing frame for tall peas such as Spring Blush sugar peas. They’d also work for sweet peas. The top of the four or five stems are finally roped to form horizontal hoops.
But, unlike so many of our garden plants, birches shine out through autumn and winter. Once the glorious autumn spectacle is over and the gentle swishing breeze through crackling leaves has passed, the tree’s magnificent trunk is fully displayed.
Throughout the long, dark winter months this fine tree brings light and colour. For me, nothing can beat the white peeling bark of the silver birch, but my downy birches’ slightly greyer bark is still pretty good.
I also like Betula ermanii’s yellow and the orange of ‘Fascination’. But, I’m no fan of the purple tinge in B. purpurea, and its bronze purple leaves are a fair turnoff, looking gloomy from a distance.
In the past, people stripped and used the bark. It played a part in basket making and was rolled in to candles, beaten into paper and used for tanning.
Plant of the week:
Radicchio ‘Variegata di Castelfranco’ is a kind of chicory that forms ball shaped heads of slightly bitter, crunchy leaves. Its leaves are striped and freckled with red and make an eye catching salad.
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