Silver burches

Hi

Complete novice looking for some advise please. I have two silver birches which are sadly decaying in the trunk. Not sure if visible on the picture but the trunks are cracking as well and the decay is making them potentially dangerous so am going to take them down to stumps myself.

Can anyone advise if its possible to plant new birches next to the stumps or if I would need to wait for the stumps to decay first or advise of anything else I could plant next to the stumps that would grow quickly and help provide screening at the back.

 

I recommend that you cut them 1.5m above ground and then dig around the root, cutting below ground any large roots you find, while using the trunk as a lever to wriggle them out. The rootlets will quickly die and do not reshoot in my experience. The stumps if left alive will however rapidly develop a dense mass of twiggy growth.

 

They look surprisingly healthy in your pictures, although perhaps a bit large for the location.
They appear to have had the crowns cut back at some point in time.