If you want to buy a tree, and you haven't much ground, buy a birch. And later there will be a good word for a very special birch. That great tree man H.
L. Edlin gives you many of their good points. They grow fast, and come swiftly to adulthood without any awkward adolescence. The shade they cast is, he avers, the lightest of any timber tree and thus you can grow flowering plants below them; spring bulbs especially, he likes.
They tolerate almost any soil. They are very hardy and resist the wildest winds. To him, their only serious fault is that they hardly live more than sixty years! And sixty feet is about their highest. But it's the sheer beauty of them that captivates him most. The lovely, whippy young twigs, dark brown with a purple sheen. And the white bark of many makes each birch trunk "an arresting pillar of light in the garden or woodland scene." Then, in spring, there are the long, lamb's tails catkins.
Many weeping birches are "delightfully elegant trees". He mentions Tristis. And in a Dublin garden a Tristis, columnar and airy has shot up at spectacular speed, takes away no one's light, and is a complete delight. There are white paper birches and silver birches. Very popular is the Himalayan betula jacquemontii. Recently a friend saw one of these with an extra tacked on. It is betula jacquemontii Trinity College.
And from the Himalayas it came to the Trinity Botanic Gardens, now overbuilt with hotels and such like, out there in Dublin 4. After some years, the tree began to fail, according to Fred Nutty, who was professionally involved. They tried raising from seed, but naturally enough the resulting growth did not come true. So they went into cuttings and grafting and eventually the old tree brought from the Himalayas is multiplied and scattered throughout the island.
Not all that many. Fred, who works with his son Stephen, reckons maybe 2,500 already. You can see the tree at their Malahide Nurseries, Mabestown, Malahide, County Dublin. You ask Fred how white the bark is compared to other jacquemontiis. "Is it whiter than white?" as the washing liquid ads have it. Yes, he says, and it is whiter farther along the branches than other birches. Right along to the twigs.
And how soon does it become really white? About five years, though a friend who bought some young at about four and five feet, says that several show a good whiteness already inspots. Birch for gardens. Birch for woods. A lovely tree in many varieties.