white birch

Hi

I planted a White Birch last November and it seems to have been doing well. However I noticed yesterday that some of the leaves were beging to go brown and wither. It is planted in the lawn with grass right up to the edge of the trunk and thought maybe the roots are not getting enough water due the grass competing. The soil in the garden is generally quite clay but ground is firm at the mement. Thought I'd post on here before watering. I also noticed yesterday that some mature silver birches in the area had the same thing going on.

Thanks Scott

 

Here's what I do:

When planting trees I make a decent sized hole (about 2' more in diameter than the rootball or pot of the plant itself - i.e. a clear 1' all around), cheer up the soil (add manure / compost), put some bone meal in the bottom of the planting hole (which helps stimulate root growth), and then after planting I keep the "planting hole area" weed free - usually cover with weed supressing fabric (bark would probably be better, and look nicer, but my naturalised trees are "out of the way" so black plastic is less conspicuous).

For specimen tress I also put some 3' of perforated drainage hose in a circle around the rootball as I plant, with one end up to ground level as a filling spout, and water through that.

OK, so that's how I do it ... sorry, not intended as a lecture, but to compare what you have done rather than asking a load of questions.

If you didn't make much or a hole before planting, to loosen the soil, the roots will be struggling to get out from the original root ball.

Having grass on top will create competition, but I think more seriously it will stop water soaking down to the tree's roots, until it gets more established and can cope better.

You don't have your location in your profile (which would help folk answering questions :thumb but if you are up North I suspect you have had plenty of rain, OTOH if you are in the South East, like me, your lawn will be rock hard, and the a newly planted tree will definitely need watering. In the absence of decent rainfall I would give 10 Litres once a week (give enough water to soak down, but don't water often - i.e. provide moisture deep down, rather than just wetting the surface, and encourage the roots to grow down to search for it, then the plant will be able to fend for itself better in the future)

If your tree is small (less than 5' tall) then 5L would probably be enough.

In prolonged dry weather, for the first couple of years, I would water twice a week.

 

Ok thanks. The tree is reasonably large around 15' and the planting hole was easily 2" bigger than the rootball and used some soil based compost and some old grass cuttings when planting so no probs there. I'm in NE Scotland but it is a lot drier here than the West coast and the ground does feel very firm. The rain over the last few weeks has been light showers so looks like it is just needing a good drink.

 

"the planting hole was easily 2" bigger than the rootball"

Hopefully that's just a typo, and it was 2 feet bigger,. rather than 2 inches?

Anyways, sounds like it has nice soil to grow into so the roots should be in good shape.

Late November was the perfect planting time too ...

I agree that it sounds like a good drink is in order.

Other possibility is that the leaves have been stressed by wind drying them out. Not much you can do about that (making it easy for the plant to find "replacement" water will help though).

 

When watering new trees, I also don't put all the water around the trunk. I move out to the edge of the planting pit, and water around there.

This will in theory encourage the roots to go out and search for water, rather than staying in the comfort zone of the planting pit where water will be potentially easier to come by.

It has been incredibly windy these last few weeks, and I think that a lot of trees are suffering slightly from it.

Hope this Helps!

 

Never thought about wind damage but as already said it has been windy enough for me to worry about breaking the supports and the brown leaves are all on one side.

 

I have some silver birch that were planted about 15 months ago. Two have done very well but one looks really sick - lost most of its leaves. The last few days of high winds did considerable damage and I think may have finished it off. Even the very large sycamores have leaves that are desiccated and withered because of the winds.