A BLUE SKY DAY
A "PERFECT TEN" PAPER BIRCH
THE BRONZE BIRCH BORER AT WORK
A "PERFECT TEN" PAIR OF PURPLE FINCHESFriday, 7:45 AM. 17 degrees, up from 13 degrees at 7:00 AM. Wind W, calm. The sky is mostly cloudless and the barometer predicts snow.
The triple-trunked paper birch (Betula paperifera) pictured is another “perfect ten” tree. These beautiful trees, so iconic of the North and which virtually everyone wants in their home landscape, are native to cool, moist, snowy areas of the Great Lakes and similar northern environments, and usually languish and die after some years if not properly located and cared for. In nature they are sometimes found far out of their native range, left behind as relict populations by the retreating glaciers. I know of one such location along the north facing banks of the Niobrara River in the treeless Sand Hills of Nebraska.
In the man-made landscape they need their native conditions, and their roots must be kept cool, mulched and shaded by lower branches and surrounding tall grasses and shrubs. Otherwise, in their weakened condition, they will fall prey to the ever present bronze birch borer and end up like the second tree pictured. Some years ago a misguided landscape architect planted a veritable phalanx of paper birch trees against the south-facing wall of a steel and glass skyscraper in lower Manhattan. Their appearance was quite dramatic, and I am sure they are now quite dead.
We have had a lot of purple finches at the feeders this winter, and these two are obviously paired up, another sign of spring.
No comments:
Post a Comment