my poor silver birch

help - what's wrong with it. It was nicely in leaf and then suddenly all the leaves have gone brown and crispy and are falling off. The catkins (or whatever one calls them) have also fallen off. It looks like it has died of thirst - but surely not.

It is I think about 8 or 9 years old.

I haven;'t done anythign to it and there are other trees in the garden near it which are fine (acer , hazel and some others that I don't even know the names of)

 

Silver Birch often don't live to a great age.
The kids brought home one in a pot from school as part of the national "Plant a tree in '73" campaign, it grew very tall, (you can see it in the distance in the side bed on the left about a third of the way in in the third photo in my "Doghouse's Garden" topic).
That would have been in 1986. It died in around 1995, rotting from the base. That's about average I'm led to believe for some of these trees. Shame because it was nice tree.

 

Oh - did not realise that. it is nice and tall and it has seemed perfectly healthy. Seems strange for it to have suddenly died.

Will leave it for now and wait to see what happens.

its a shame in a way as it is a lovely tree but we actually have too many trees in our garden, planted by previous owners so in a way I am not that annoyed about it.

 

Hi jude2

Silver birches can live, on average, about 70 - 90 years or so, although occasionally you can find older. If you take a look at this thread you may find some answers to why your tree died.

http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/tree-health-disgnosis-self-help-guide-t16441.html

If you can post a photo or two of your tree it may help identify why it's died off.

 

Maybe the problem with mine and possibly others, is that our silver birch was a grafted tree?
Many thousands would have been provided during the "Plant a Tree in '73" campaign conducted through schools and they would have all ended up in back gardens. Ours rotted in the area around the original graft.

I've always understood grafted trees often have a shorter life-span than those occuring naturally.

 

my silver birch is about 40 and the same thing has happened what do i do

 

I have had a birch tree planted today with the instructions, "They are thirsty trees ,if they go dry they will start dropping the leaves ":(