Paper Birch, Large Trees

Betula papyrifera: Bareroot Paper Birch Trees in Standard Sizes

The Paper or Canoe Birch, Betula papyrifera, is a vigorous, medium-sized tree. Mature trees have beautiful peeling bark, creamy-white on the outside with a faint orange hue on the inside, which begins to appear on wood that is over 5 years old; young bark is a ruddy brown colour. The autumn colour is a pleasing deep orange.

They can reach a height of about 20-25 metres, with a neat, narrow canopy.
Standard trees are the largest size that we deliver; you can also buy younger Paper Birch saplings.

Browse our varieties of birch tree or our full range of ornamental trees.

Delivery season: Birches are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.
Choosing a size: Small trees are cheaper, easier to handle and more forgiving of less than ideal aftercare, so they are best for a big planting project. If instant impact is your priority, or if you are only buying a few plants for use in a place where it is convenient to water them well in their first year, then you may as well use bigger ones. All our bareroot trees are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Features:

• Height: 20-25m
• Tidy, narrow, upright habit
• Use: Screening, waterside.
• Warm orange Autumn colour
• Soil: Moist, fertile. Dislikes chalk
• Bareroot delivery only: Nov-March
  

Growing Paper Birch

It will grow in most fertile soils, except chalk. It needs full sun.

Did You Know?

The waterproof bark is still used by Americans to make traditional canoe hulls. In the past, it would have been used for many other things, such as roof slats, rain-proof capes and hats, buckets and other vessels. Thin strips of the peeling bark can be used to make crude sunglasses and its oil content makes it superb tinder for lighting a fire. The wood will burn well even when it is fresh, but it isn't ideal for regular home use because it produces lots of tar that clogs up the chimney.
It is a good tree to plant on loose soil and riverbanks to prevent erosion because it grows rapidly and has quite a matted root system.

Birches are relatively short-lived trees that don't live much past 80-100 years old.

Standard trees are measured by their girth in centimetres 1 metre above ground level: their trunk's waist measurement. Unlike sapling trees and hedge plants, standards aren't measured by their height, which will vary quite a bit both between and within species.
So, a 6/8cm standard tree has a trunk with a circumference of 6-8cm and an 8/10 standard has a trunk 8-10cm around. This measurement makes no difference to the tree's final height.
On average, standard trees are 2-3.5 metres tall when they arrive, but we cannot tell you precisely how tall your trees will be before we deliver them.