The Herald - The Herald Magazine

Five last-minute jobs to do before winter arrives Bring back the birch

- DAVE ALLAN

THE birch is an elegant tree with so much for us to enjoy: its yellow spring catkins blowing gently in a breeze, the tiny diamond leaves that let the light shine through, their autumn colour and the tactile, peeling bark of its trunk.

Three of the species native to Scotland were probably the first trees to colonise our soil as it was revealed by the retreating glaciers of the Ice Age.

And birch has been among the first to move into vacant ground ever since.

Over the years, I’ve seen this process at work. When we first came here, gorse had started to spread up the hill behind us, but before long alder, hazel and birch found bare patches to germinate and they have now emerged above the skin-ripping vegetation. Before too long, the trees will shade out and kill the gorse.

Although most birches reach between 8 and 12 metres, if you have a small garden, you could instead go for a dwarfing variety. And though, like most plants, they need full sun or dappled shade, some can cope with damp but not soggy ground.

There are weeping cultivars and many can be pruned to develop three or five stems instead of a single trunk.

But it is the bark of birches that is such an important asset over winter when there is less of interest in many of our gardens.

Colours range from the striking white of Betula utilis var jacquemont­ii Moonbeam to the deep orange of B utilis Fascinatio­n.

New cultivars are being released every year, including the recently launched B albo-sinensis China Birch, with its striking orange-red bark.

You need to grow these varieties in reasonably fertile ground in an open sunny spot or dappled shade, but some cultivars, especially of downy birch, B pubescens, can cope with damp, acidic soil.

Another option is B nigra Cully, River Birch, with the more unusual pale yellowish cream bark.

If your soil is wet and you’re cramped for space, Betula nana, Arctic or dwarf birch, could be the solution.

Because it only reaches 60cm (2ft), with a 1.2m (4ft) spread, it will grow successful­ly in a restricted space. But if you have room in a drier sunny place for a low-growing birch, B medwedewii Gold Bark could be the answer.

I can’t see beyond a tall silver birch, especially when stripped of its foliage. The bark of a tree is often ignored, and quite wrongly, given the unique shape and design of every genus, and this is specially true of birches.

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