Silver Birch Sapling Trees

Betula pendula: Young Bareroot Trees

Silver Birch, Betula pendula, is a fast growing, native tree with pretty white bark and an airy, semi-weeping canopy that casts light, dappled shade. It likes sunny sites, and will thrive on pretty much any soil except solid chalk. It is not suitable for hedging, and grows to about 25 metres.

The plants on this page are young saplings. You can also buy larger Silver Birch trees, browse all of our other varieties of Birch trees, or see our full range of hedging and saplings trees.

The pale, creamy-white bark of this elegant tree is its best feature, providing year-round interest. It has little diamond shaped, mid-green leaves with serrated edges, dangling in fluttering streamers of thin, hanging side-branches. These turn yellow in autumn, which looks fantastic next to the white bark with the sun shining through it all. It produces catkins in April and May, which release their seeds to the wind.

Silver Birch saplings are only delivered bareroot, during winter (Nov-March).

Choosing a size: When you are ordering a large quantity of Silver Birch for a big project, we suggest that you buy the smaller plants, graded at 60/80cms. They are cheaper than large plants, easier to handle and more likely to cope well with poor conditions. Use the larger sizes for instant impact in a garden.
All of our young trees and shrubs are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Features

• Likes full sun.
• Any soil, preferably on the moist side.
• White bark provides year round interest.
• Casts relatively light shade.
• Height: Vigorous to 25m
• Bareroot Delivery Only, Nov-March

Growing Silver Birch

In the wild, it is a pioneer tree that rapidly takes advantage of openings in a forest when other trees fall, and other open sites like river banks. As other, slower growing trees overshadow it, it begins to die, so it will suffer in more than a little of shade.

Its favourite soil is deep, rich and moist, and it loves growing close to water, as long as it only waterlogs temporarily in winter. But, as long as it gets enough sun, it really isn't fussy, and will be fine on fairly poor, dry soil as well, especially if you help it along with good soil preparation and a yearly mulch in spring to conserve soil moisture in the early years.

Silver Birch in your Garden

As a screening tree, its fine branches and sparse foliage blur rather than obliterate whatever it is you are trying to hide. Because it only casts dappled shade, you have a wide range of options for things to plant under it, and it is perfect for bluebells.

It is debatable whether you want to train a climber up it, because this will obscure the white bark. A good choice here are Clematis in pruning group 3, which are hard pruned in February/March, so you will get a few weeks of lovely bare bark before the trees come into leaf.

They can be used to help regenerate a site with terrible soil. Being vigorous and relatively short-lived, they will quickly start laying down layers of leaves that rot down and improve the soil. In time, the soil will become fertile enough for other trees to thrive and by the time that they are mature, the birches will naturally be in decline.

Did You Know?

Known as Lady of the Woods in old stories, it was a very useful tree in the past. Its bark was used for covering boats, canoes or making the roof of a hut. A skilled worker could remove the outermost layer of bark without killing the tree: if you want to try your hand at this, late spring is the best time.

An unpleasant tasting but effectively alcoholic mead can be made from Silver Birch sap, which tastes like sugary water in spring. Its resin was boiled down to make a decent glue.

Today, it is sometimes used as a coppice tree for firewood, harvested every 3/4 years. It is one of the easiest firewoods, burning bright and hot even before it is fully dried. Artist grade charcoal is made from the bark.

Birch is the traditional material for making a sauna whisk, or vihta, which are used to gently flog your sauna buddy. As if any further reason were necessary to hit someone with a bundle of wet twigs, this is said to improve blood circulation, reduce muscle soreness, and improve mood, at least for the person administering the therapeutic thrashing. These days, it is common to use Eucalyptus in the whisk.