 Sometimes I get it as a question. What is a special tree that I need to have in my landscape in North Dakota and To me, I think one of the answers you have you have to consider a birch tree why because birch has amazing bark and Bark in North Dakota is so important because for goodness sakes our trees are leafless For most of the year. So like why should we care about like a crab apple that blooms for two weeks? care about something that has great bark all winter long and so Consider a birch tree. So now we got an expert to tell you about birds trees Greg Morgensen has been an urban forester for decades He is a top researcher from this nationally acclaimed woody plant improvement program And we're so fortunate to have him here tonight. So Greg Please welcome to the forums Thank you, Tom We'll hand advances to the first slide. Well, I kind of wanted to talk about birch tonight because One of the things if you live anywhere in the central US the northern US You have probably tried a birch in your yard. We're not all successful at it And I'll talk about that but birch is probably one of the most popular landscape trees that that we can plant So I'm going to go through a little bit about it Birch why they do well why they don't do well some of the things we can do to make sure they Do perform up to their best and then maybe go into some of the species and cultivars after that So there's there's many many cultivars of birch and Species in a birch not all birch are created equal. So there's many many different Species out there and a number of them we can use in our landscapes here in North Dakota They offer a very striking addition to the landscape I want to say when they're sighted and planted properly where the climate is suitable for their optimal growth And that's really the key to this where they're planted correctly in a suitable environment Well cared for spruce and home landscape provide attractive seasonal interest as Tom mentioned the bark through the winter and And and also all the traditional tree benefits of wind protection shading of a home Just just making a living environment a little bit better As we've progressed in birch about the last 30 40 years We've actually started doing a lot of different changes Selecting for plant form to make them a little more adaptable the landscapes There's there's upright forms. There's small forms the old traditional European weeping Birch is still in use Hopefully not for long, but still in use. So there's a lot of different forms you can place in a very incised landscape a Lot of different foliage textures and colors got everywhere from green to purple foliage Generally most of them turn a yellow to brilliant yellow in the fall so you've got that extra extra season of interest there as they start to shut down in the fall and The bark on a Tom mentioned bark. There's so much variation in the bark of birch I always thought a really neat planting would be to not just have one species of birch But maybe have five six different species in a planting and mix up that bark texture in them They're they're everywhere from brilliant white to salmon colored to highly exfoliating So there's a lot of different bark textures that you can choose from So we have this nice birch in our yard. It's grown for a while and then suddenly over a couple years It's dead. So what happened? What happened to my beautiful birch? well, most birch are planted outside of their optimal growing conditions and birch under stress Run into all kinds of problems. So the result is decline in depth the picture here. You're gonna have moisture stress It's planted in a dry spot High soil pH it looks like it's in a Western environment with a higher soil pH You have reflected heat from that street one thing you don't want is a lot of reflected heat on a birch Plant competition and these all start to contribute to decline in in birch and really is the problem with with their decline in eventual death one thing we need to remember about birch and And we use them we use them in our landscapes, but they're really far out of their native environment when we put them in those Landscapes they're naturally found growing in in the northern US Canadian provinces Mountain forests pretty evenly moist shaded cool soils cool as a key there and slightly acidic to acidic soil pH's and they generally grow on sunny sites where their crowns are sunny With a similar site requiring species so there may be other trees or shrubs mixed in that's like the same conditions and There's minimal ground vegetation There's not a lot of brome grass or turf grass and the trunks are often shaded for a portion of the day Their root systems generally are always shaded for most of the day So we're really trying to move birch into an unnatural environment in our landscape So where do we plant birch we take birch we take them into our landscape We put them out in the front of a lawn Generally just grown by themselves Turf up to the trunk unless you do a little bit of control on it Heavy heavy turf light shallow watering instead of instead of less frequent deep watering and They may grow for a while and and start doing very well But at some point they start to decline in the tree in the picture on the left there already has Dead stems up in the top of there probably from bronze birch for which we'll talk about The turf to the trunk of the tree is probably one of the biggest things that that end up causing a lot of damage Birch are very thin barked and so we run around them with mowers We went around them with string tremors and we eventually damaged that bark to the point that the trees really no longer to function properly So in the landscape that sets us up for a number of problems Bronze birch bore being the number one. I'm sure you've all heard of bronze birch bore We've got some lesser problems birch leaf miner, which is cosmetic but can really cause some severe defoliation in a heavy infestation and if you're here in the in the valley or some of the other places out West with high pH you get this yellow Chlorosis on the foliage. So those are all Indications that you're going to have problems with your birch If anything else we learned tonight we'll learn about bronze birch bore and why this why is this is such a problem You've all heard of emerald ash for from Asia bronze birch bore is its close cousin from North America Very closely related species emerald ash bore and ash bronze birch bore in birch So we have our own bore that's native to our our country and has been here for Millennium so our species have evolved with that the North American species that have evolved with bronze birch bore have and I Kind of group this three ways poor to fair to very good tolerance to bronze birch bore Bronze birch bore tolerance is species dependent and it's also population within species dependent and then European and most Asian Species which did not evolve with bronze birch bore are very susceptible to bronze birch bore infestation and death One of the symptoms of bronze birch bore very similar again to emerald ash bore is the D-shaped exit holes on the trunk of the trees So if you see those on there those D-shaped holes, then you know you've got bronze birch bore in there So oftentimes when I drive around you see a lot of birch Such as a birch on the left with the whole top beginning to die back and that's bronze birch bore infestation again planted in a in a lawn situation Sawed up to it We may think we're doing pretty good care for it and other trees like an elm or an ash or an oak would perform well there But but birch out in that full Sun environment with a warm root system just does not perform well Again, you see the D-shaped exit holes and then also you start seeing woodpecker damage in there The woodpeckers know that those larva are in there So they'll go in there and start tearing up those trunk stew and then eventually you've got death of that tree So how can we avoid all this? Well, the first one is to plant tolerant species and cultivars avoid the European and Asian species We all like the European cut leaf weeping birch Unfortunately, if you were to take all the birches and say which one is the most susceptible to bronze birch bore It'd be the European weeping birch Planted an optimal planting site mulched root shaded area north or northeast side of your home Avoid the real open dry full Sun planting signs on the sites on the south and southwest So if you can shade those roots during the day and keep them cool and keep them mulched You go a long ways towards improving the health of that tree Avoid damage by mowers and string trimmers Whoever's doing your lawn care Make sure that they stay away from them and try to have a mulch area around there So you totally avoid it birch have a very thin bark on it and once you damage that that that tree That area where you've removed that bark is no longer functioning for transport in there One thing avoid granular herbicides people like to spread weed and feed all over their lawn You're actually spreading two 4d granules all over in there that can leach into that root zone Avoid those type of materials around them. I would say avoid them around all trees But but birch can be very sensitive to it. Keep your pruning to a minimum You don't want to go in and prune a lot of wood out of that tree Just do some general maintenance type trimming and if you can leave those limbs lower where it shades the trunk shades the Soil around it a little bit and a good thing to remember the warmer drier and more exposed the site Bigger will decline and stress will occur. It's just pretty much a given on on birch So a little bit about Site-wise, you know, try to water deeply during dry periods I mean people like to irrigate their lawns. They do a lot of shallow Everyday irrigation for every other day. That's really not getting down in that root zone area and then getting that Water level that they need so avoid the real shallow ones Maintain a cool root run mulch if you can mulch out to the drip line is ideal Especially on birch if you can keep that mulch area wide. That's the best way you're gonna keep those in good health additional birch problems chlorosis I Just took this picture last summer actually has taken or summary for last taken pictures of Elm and What it shows here though, you can see how well that Elm is doing on a boulevard planting here in Fargo To the left of it is a birch to the right of it is a red maple those bright yellow trees are not adapted to our clay high pH soils or the pH soils further west in the state So if you don't have a site to plant a birch on don't plant a birch select a tree that's going to do well in that area Sap sucker damage if any of you have birch you've probably seen this Sap suckers or a woodpecker. They'll drill around and around that tree They'll actually drill hundreds of thousands of holes in there and at this point. They're not looking for anything inside the tree They actually wound it so that that tree oozes sap and then they can basically lick that up They don't suck it out of there, but they lick it up the sap on the birch is sweet and they like that So I said the bark is thin. So that's one of the trees. They really go for those thin bark trees Um Basically at this point it is hard to recommend what to do for it people of hung snakes and owls and in metal pans and Tangle foot all around them and and the sap suckers Still will go to the tree the best thing I think I have heard is to take three or four bamboo stakes or some kind of wooden Wooden rods or poles and tie them around the trunk of that tree. So it Interrupts their feeding patterns excuse me So if you can interrupt that pattern of the bird going around the tree you want to do that Woodpeckers are also protected migratory birds. So you really can't do anything otherwise to get rid of what to plant what not to plant and As I said avoid European white birch and cultivars of that such as the pendula or the weeping one and the cut leaf weeping They're very very highly preferred by the bronze birch for There's purple leaf cultivars that are very attractive in the landscape and I know I see them more and more in the landscape But one thing to remember they are either that species on some of them or their hybrids with that species the European white Birch so they're also going to be very susceptible to bronze birch for the North American species that have evolved with bronze birch more have some low tolerance to very high tolerance of certain species and cultivars and Examples of some of our native species include paper birch the gray birch River birch yellow birch and sweet birch and I'll talk about a few of those here. I think we're all familiar with paper birch It's another one of the white barked birches Has some exfoliating bark on it. It's native across the whole northern tier of the US this is a birch that's native to North Dakota one of our two native birches and Paper birch and then the Western Rocky Mountain birch are also native to North Dakota But papers found in areas across North Dakota and it has some tolerance to bronze birch for Intel it's placed under very stressful growing conditions But generally birch of the birch species paper birch has more tolerance to bronze birch for than many of the other white barked birches Populations from the northern Midwest are generally those that are best suited for North Dakota conditions We don't want to take a paper birch from New England or from northern Canada and Planted here and expected to do well under our conditions. So North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana type populations are best There's a number of paper birch cultivars that we have in testing at a horticulture farm The one pictured here is Renaissance reflection does very well. It's somewhat pyramidal very nice dark green foliage bright white bark So it's kind of one of them that we tend to recommend a little bit Avalanche is another one and again very nice white bark here a middle seems to be very very susceptible to sap sucker damage, but Seems to be doing well chickadee is a very upright narrow paper birch One of the paper birch city that has gotten National I guess recognition has been widely used across the northern US is prairie dream paper birch And this is available in most nurseries in the area garden centers and this is a selection out of the NDSU woody plant program and It originated from a birch population in the Kildere Mountains of North Dakota So the Kildere Mountains well north of Dickinson you're out in a stressful environment with low humidity this tree growing in that area has adapted to those conditions is these population of birch and So dr. Dale Herman our previous head of the woody plant program grew a population of Birch from the Kildere Mountains and selected prairie dream out of that very bright white bark Attractive grown as a multi-stamped as most white barked birches are and Does does very well in our areas pretty readily available now also We'll talk a little bit about river birch river birch is probably One of the most widely used Landscaping birches in the US, but it tends to be used further east of us and further south For two reasons once it was cold hardiness within a lot of the populations and the second one is they tend to have iron Chlorosis on high pH soils. So we've got two problems that that we had to overcome there There are a number of paper birch that are around and growing I do see them some do well and some do not Again, I'm going to put a little plug in for one of our releases. This should be available in 2019 This is one called northern tribute river birch very shaggy exfoliating Whitey cream colored to salmon color bark full-sized tree and as you can see the foliage in the picture This is growing on a pH of about 8 to so it's got Tolerance to higher pH soils and again this came out of the the birch program at NDSU with dr. Herman Had found or had heard of a tree River birch tree in all places Dickinson, North Dakota, which is probably one of the most unusual places you would find a river birch Grow again a seedling population from this and selected northern tribute river birch out of there There's been three of the major Landscape ornamental nurseries Get this tree into tissue culture and they're now in their production programs and should have that available in 2019 Asian white birch For a while this was kind of touted as a replacement for a European white birch very cold hardy Well adapted to North Dakota high pH soil pH tolerance But it was found to be susceptible under stressful planting conditions so again, we go back to that proper sighting and care for them and there are several several Platyphila or Asian white birch that are available Again, one of the birch out of the NDSU program this kind of taking the birch world by storm across the country is Dakota pinnacle a very upright compact birch Does very well in the landscape 40 to 50 foot in height very nice deep green color bright white bark a very Uniform predictable shape to it and it's pretty widely available. So of the platyphila Birches Dakota pinnacle is probably now the go-to tree There's one out of Canada now out of Jeffrey's working with Bailey nurseries in Minnesota It's called Parkland Pillar and basically what this is is a it's called just a tissue culture variant out of a pop tissue culture population of the Dakota pinnacle birch one was noticed that was very Alumner-in-form instead of the broadly columbar was narrow narrowly columbar So that was selected and named as Parkland Pillar very very narrow upright birch So you're gonna have to have a have a spot where a very narrow tree will will be the tree to plant Want to talk about a little bit of other birch possibilities or our other species? Yellow birch has a huge range to the east of us I'd say comes quite a ways across Minnesota On the whole tier of northern states Generally not used as much in a landscape situation because it doesn't have the bright white bark It's got kind of a yellowish golden yellowish Exfoliating bark. This is a tree that's growing in Fargo here bright yellow full color kind of a nice Nor ornamental birch Excuse me my fruit seizes up here and then along that same line And I'll talk about some other species, but I'm gonna talk about some in our program at Absuraka We have a have had and have a birch evaluation program We have a large planning to birch number of them do well a number of them are in various stages of Decline and death. We have a high population of bronze birch for which we want All the birch out there. We wanted to be subjected to the worst of the worst So you can see some trees do very well others do not I Wanted to mention Korean birch betula castata because this is kind of has been touted a little bit is having some resistance to bronze birch for In fact some reports even says it has good resistance to bronze birch for but Korean birch does very well for us Those of you that like to grow things from seed if you can grow a tomato seed you can grow a birch seed So you can go to some of the seed companies FW Schumacher Sheffield seed they have packets of some of these bird species and and certainly give them a try It's a beautiful tree Another one along that same line, but with even more exfoliating bark is to hurry and large It's kind of a smaller tree Again, it has been said to have resistance to bronze birch for very pH adaptable Very exfoliating bark on it a really really pretty plant. So again, you know, if you come across seed of that in a packet Give it a try We have another selection out of our program to a maximum that I'm released pretty recently Generally, we think of birches trees tall trees anywhere from 20 30 40 50 foot tall. This is one called cinnamon curls. This is a betulacistata again a Korean birch and In about 30 years of age this birch is 9 foot by 9 foot. So very small fits in a very small landscape very attractive exfoliating bark We've got one nursery that now has it in tissue culture So hopefully down the road here not too long from now We'll be able to get this birch and use it in our landscape To have a very small birch in the landscape with this type of bark that's hardy here. It will be a real plus for us We just released another birch that we're getting out into the trade and it's called Tianshin birch It's from northern China Very very columnar in form very drought tolerant very pH tolerant So we hope this gets picked up by the nurseries also and we can we can get that out But so from all this there's a lot of birch species you can grow you just need to provide the suitable Conditions for them those that are adapted to your area. So thanks a lot. And if you have some questions, I'll try to answer them Okay, thank you great Okay, we got a lot of good questions here How about Just give us a ballpark. We got a healthy weeping birch Okay, so let's assume it's under a right the proper environment So how long is this birch gonna live? Is a birch a long-leath tree or short-leath tree in China? birch the kind of the Rule of thumb is if it's 40 to 50 years old, then you've done a really good job. So If you can keep it in good shape, you know, I mean and they can certainly live longer than that We know they can live longer than that but Yeah, it's if you're doing it right and just taking care of it like that. I guess I wouldn't change anything and just keep Keep going What do you think about rock? Is that a good mulch around a birch tree? um, I guess I don't have a big preference between rock and Wood mulch rock is fine with me. I know some people don't like it The biggest plus is it doesn't blow away and in our climate if you're exposed to 60 mile an hour winds Then you've got all that bark or rain washing out in your yard So I guess I haven't had any problems with it. In fact, I see birch doing very well in some small rock mulch How about the heat build up from the mulch? Yeah, I I have heard that and I I just I guess I just haven't Tested that but Okay, great um What's the best paper birch for a higher ph The best paper birch right now to go to your garden center and buy is prairie dream paper birch Is that better than a yellow birch? And they're high ph soil dependent on high ph I don't know what the ph is up to about eight or so you can grow yellow birch Above that prairie dream will grow up eight two eight three ph in your soil So why would it grow a yellow birch instead of prairie dream? Why would you yeah when I just get a dream? Well, yeah, you could The one thing is prairie dream is a white bark birch yellow birch is a yellow Coppery creamy color birch so both of them are very attractive trees. I guess I wouldn't limit myself to one One species or cultivar How about uh How far did birch bores travel? And this person doesn't know of any other birch trees at least five blocks in any direction Well, they're a flying insect If we go by emerald ash borer, which is a quarter to half a mile then I would think uh bronze birch borer would be about the same I'll find a sad birch tree well what they do Yeah, and and what I should mention here when birch declined they released Release a chemical and so the uh bronze birch borer zeros in on that chemical that's released by a declining birch Greg you like uh Understory plantings are like hostas in the mulch under the birch sure. Yeah understory plantings Um non-competitive understory plantings, especially hostile with large leaves to shade the soil would would be good You know you mentioned starting some of these uh exotic birches from seed so like Come on man. What kind of time frame are we talking about to get to a four foot tree? Like is that for my grandchildren or what? No, no, okay, let's go. Do you want me to talk about seed a little bit seed birch birch seed How many years okay birch seed is really easy to uh to collect Treat and germinate if you want to grow up your own tree Grab those uh female capcans in the fall and the seeds are Shattering put them in a baggie mix them with some damp damp potting soil damp peat moss throw them in your refrigerator keep it down bring them out in the spring Put them in a flat cover lightly Put something over the top just uh just to maintain moisture but let light through They'll germinate in a week to 14 days You can just prick them out of there like you would any vegetable plant They should grow anywhere from one to two foot the first year Two there should be anywhere two to four foot by the second year birch grow very rapidly very very rapidly really Four foot tree in two years in two years my goodness Um Can you get seeds of the cinnamon curls birch tree or is that just the tissue culture? cinnamon curls No, at this point Um, you can't that is a variety of castata and i'm assuming they want the small version But castata bet you look castata seed is readily available from seed dealers Can is aspen a good substitute for a birch tree? I think aspen is actually a worse substitute for a birch tree. They tend to sucker There are uh subject to a lot of canker diseases Uh and decline they're attractive in the landscape for a while, but uh If you do not maintain them and keep those suckers mowed down you'll have a grove taken over your yard What are we got here, okay, the bronze birch bore if you mentioned as a major threat What if you think your birch tree has bronze birch bore What do you do about it get somebody out there to confirm that if you have a local Garden center person certified arborist make sure that that's what you have and then what What control they would uh offer for that i'm not into chemical control on trees I like the plant trees that we're not going to need that on But there are some chemicals systemic chemicals that birch can be treated with if the infestation is light If it's a heavy infestation Do your cut at ground level and rid yourself of the problem, but light infestation There are some systemic insecticides. So we'll see the damage starting from the top of the tree Because the vascular system has been destroyed by the bore Right in that area so the top of the tree gets the last drink of water. So yeah, you'll see the symptoms there And I was taught that if you see more than one third of the tree died back Then it's hard to say the tree because the vascular system has been so much destroyed And there are insecticide systemic insecticides in matacloprid Bear advanced tree and shrug insect control is the magic cure for that Does clump birch do well in eastern north dakota? Yeah clump birch clump birch really is Birch in a clump of whatever species it may be but yeah birch do well Pretty much statewide depending on the proper species in the proper site. Yep Now you said that northern tribute river birch does not show chorosis Even at 8.2 pH correct because I soil sample right underneath that. Yes That's a breakthrough for river birch. Yeah totally. That's a that's a that's a breakthrough. Yep, because that's an amazing When when northern tribute does come out. It's a it's a pretty special tree And also the one thing about river birch is they are almost totally immune to bronze birch for they do not produce the chemical Under stress that attracts birch for so If you want a tree that it will not get bronze birch for the river birch are one of those That could take that can take the heat. That's why the river birch is so special Right take the heat doesn't get the bore, but you can't take a high pH of your northern tribute. It's an amazing Advancement so fingers crossed 2019 will start seeing it's going to be available. Hopefully. Yeah, look forward to Well, so any other questions out there? Um Here's a question if birch are closed together in a clump Will the trunks tend to girdle themselves on the inside of the clump? Not necessarily not unless there's a lot of movement in there And birch naturally grow as a clump anyway, so I I guess I would say no I have not seen that personally Okay, what's the a I buy a prairie dream birch from a local garden center How many years until it reaches about 30 feet tall? Under Yeah, I would say 12 14 years Okay under good conditions they grow they can grow two to three foot a year sometimes under very good conditions Okay, that's you know, you mentioned about herbicides How uh you shouldn't put granular herbicides Under the root system of a birch tree Well, how far does the root system of a birch tree go? That's that's yeah, that's your whole yard. Yeah, that's all your whole front yard I know some people like them. So but I'm just saying keep away from them. So that's right A day in the line is okay. Think of your birch tree limit your application right out once a year maybe in fall Okay, any more last questions here? Okay, that's great. Thank you. I'll see any