Silver birch hedges

[Rich]

Don't know why in the middle of June my mind turned to hedges, but....

I was pondering why you don't see silver birch used as a hedging plant? Maybe you do and I've just not seen it. I know it isn't a long lived tree, but maybe if it was kept down it would last longer than the 60 or 70 years that is usual. It also has the most wonderful thick brush which would be ideal for hedges, it's one of the oldest native trees so birds and animals must thrive having evolved around it. It coppices reasonably well so it should lay okay. Can anyone offer any reasons why it's not providing thick wonderful natural boundaries across the country's landscape?

Rich

[RichardKing]

For some reason Birch does not seem to like growing in hedges. I have a couple of fair sized sulver birch in my garden & they give rise to a lot of seedlings in the grass & flower beds, but I have never seen one sprouting out of a hedge. In contrast to this I regularly see Oak & Ash sapling attempting to make their way out of established hedges. The Ash in particular will make a metre of new growth every year, only to be cut back in winter.

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Down in my my woods I have observed a dense thicket of self seeded Birch seedings evolve over the last nine years. It has literally been survival of the fittest. Any sapling that got shaded out simply died in a continuous natural self-spacing system. The Birch had grown on an area cleared for stacking cut coppice prior to my purchasing the wood. That I think is part of the answer. Birch is an opportunistic fast growing colloniser of open ground, but does not seem to survive shade.

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As for coppicing, in my experience regeneration can be a bit mixed. Suitable for laying ? Well Birch seems to rot at the slightest excuse & cutting into the heartwood may well be fatal.

But actually planting a hedge would be an interesting experiment. You might have more success with the dwarf Birch (native to parts of Scotland)

[Rich]

Quite a feasible explanation - I was out on the forest today and came a cross a line of birch trees about 8 or 10 feet apart which for some reason all been pollarded, there was a lot of rot and dead branches, a little bit of regrowth but certainly not enough to make a decent hedge... so maybe that's the answer too, they just don't like being hacked about!