"Spider" wrote in message
...
|
| "Angela" wrote in message
| om...
|
| Hi Angela,
|
| I'm not an expert, but do own a couple of birches. Many plants will shed
| buds or flowers when drought-stressed. Conversely, many more produce
oodles
| of flowers before they die - a swan song, if you like. Since birches are
| shallow rooted, I think you're probably right with the drought stress.
| Let's hope it's not the second option :~(.
|
| Birches also like a somewhat acid soil; they're fairly tolerant, but I can
| see how a solid raft of concrete over their roots might be a tolerance too
| far. Can you enlarge the exposed soil area where each tree is planted?
....
| and/or introduce a length of pipe into the ground so that you can water
the
| root area directly? I suggest you keep it as wet as you reasonably can
| this summer in the hope of leaching out as much lime as possible. Also
give
| it a regular acid feed, though don't overdo it. Follow the instructions
on
| the fertiliser pack carefully.
|
| I have a birch growing next to a concrete path (not the same as having its
| roots buried in concrete, though!) and since I figured out the acid feed
| trick, it's doing really well. I'm also fairly sure that Scots Pine
| appreciates an acid feed. In the wild, the local carpet of its own shed
| needles acidifies the soil, but it sounds like that can't happen in your
| garden, so you'll probably need to help it out.
|
| Spider

Hi Spider

Thanks for the advice, at least it looks like I can give it a bit of help by
watering/feeding. I'll give it a good feed when I do the hydrangers. There
is no way of increasing the soil area around the tree. I'm glad I had the
other trees taken down or they all would been competing for less water.

Angela