In article ,
martin wrote:

They tend to fall over in gales. We got rid of ours when it was about
15 years old.

Not quite. One of the reasons that they are popular with planners
is that healthy ones DON'T blow over!

They do. Unhealthy ones break.

Er, we seem to be agreeing vehemently :-)

Actually because they grow quick and look nice on architects drawings.

Yes, there is that, too.

They have extremely strong and
tenacious roots that get everywhere, and don't catch the wind much.
They are one of the few trees that will grow in really windswept
locations, though perhaps not as windswept as ordinary birch.

We got rid of our tree because 95% of the silver birch planted at the
same time as our tree, in our part of the town, had already blown over
in autumn gales.

I would bet good odds on an inspection showing parasitic fungal
infection. From your other posting, it isn't the wind that will
worry them (a MERE force 9 is a trifle!) but is more likely to be
wet, salt and perhaps the sand. They have thin roots that grip
like anything in stony soil, but I don't know what they do in
pure sand, nor do I know what salt does to their mycorrhiza.

It sounds as if a common birch would have been a better choice,
on the grounds that it handles wet better. But I don't know how
birches handle salt in any detail. Trees vary a lot.

Plant a silver birch on the terrain it is adapted for - a stony
hillside - and it will live for ages and laugh off much stronger
winds. But they aren't naturally a lowland plant.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.