During the weekend of May 5-7 Horsford’s ‘Grower’s Gift’ to valued customers and their friends will be a seedling river birch (Betula nigra).

For all their grace and delicate appearance – birches are often planted as a “Mother’s Tree” on Mother’s Day – these are tough, pioneering trees, and the river birch is probably the toughest of all the birches.

Birches prefer gravelly soil with plenty of moisture moving through it – like alpines. That’s why you see them growing happily in old gravel pits and on the rock faces along I-89. They
are among the first in on burned forestland and do well on sandy loam but not on clay. If you have clay soil plant them high and keep adding mulch/humus for the expanding root systems. A lack of either oxygen or moisture creates stress and “send(s) a formal dinner invitation to the bronze birch borer” (Dirr). River birch are native north to south along eastern U.S. streams and rivers, and are resistant, possibly immune, to borer because they
lack the chemical attractant present in white-barked species.

River birch have a nice growth habit with symmetrical branching and are often grown with multiple trunks. They are fast-growing, and wind and ice resistant. The leaves are shaped like the spade of a playing card suit, have a silvery underside, and turn a nice goldenyellow
in the fall. Their flowers are catkins. The male catkins are visible at the ends of twigs through the winter and become dangling tassels in the spring, dropping pollen on the erect
female catkins that emerge from buds below. The developing seedheads look like little cones and the tiny bi-winged seeds are dropped while it is still spring – so river floods can carry seeds to new territory.

The most noticeable and delightful characteristic of Betula nigra is its bark. The young bark is a smooth reddish brown that becomes peel-y, shaggy, picturesque, and pink-orange-peach-tan colored. The ‘Heritage’ cultivar has whiter bark than the species. The perception
of light color is created by the outer layers of bark having clear cells and air spaces that reflect light in all directions. The outer bark’s cellular structure – alternate layers of large and small cells – accounts for characteristic peeling as larger cells rupture with environmental changes so it looks as if it has exploded. Birch bark is resinous (the
ingredient for birch beer and Russian leather), and the inner bark is layered with cork cells, insulating the tree from cold, thus waterproofing anything made from the bark such as cooking pots and birch canoes.

River birch is hardy in all US climate zones and can give 20 good years as a street tree if low branches are trimmed and the soil is acidic and watered. It will thrive as long as 50 years on golf courses and river parks. Don’t prune in the spring until the sap stops flowing
–birches are “bleeders”.

Large-size river birch will also be available for sale if you don’t want to wait for the wonderful bark, or you’d like to make a bigger impression on your mother.