On 8 Oct 2003 20:31:24 GMT, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:

In article ,
martin wrote:

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

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.

You would lose your bet.

From your other posting, it isn't the wind that will
worry them (a MERE force 9 is a trifle!

Force 9 is about as strong as it gets in UK most of the time, Force 10
is rare.

Its a wind of 47-54 mph. An average force 9 will include gusts of 10.
Gusts of Force 10 cause structural damage. Where there are buildings
the wind will be accelerated to way over the average nominal wind
speed in places.
Yesterday there was a storm of force 8-9, trees were uprooted and
there was structural damage locally.

) but is more likely to be
wet, salt and perhaps the sand.

So they just fall over?

A force 9 gusting 10 rips them out of sandy soil roots and all.

They have thin roots that grip
like anything in stony soil, but I don't know what they do in
pure sand,

they grip the sand, when they fall a big lump of sand is lifted too.

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.

the ground water does not contain salt.


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.

That's why we had ours removed.


--
Martin