busbus wrote:

I don’t even know if you can do what I want to do. I have a birch tree
that is dying. I knew they were short-lived trees whenever I planted
it over 20 years ago. It is on my hillside and I have chicken wire on
the hill helping hold the mulch on it since it is pretty steep, so I
have a mess on my hands.

The tree is about 20-feet tall now. It is a clump birch with three
trunks. Each trunk is about the size of, say, a softball or smaller.

I believe I can cut it down and get a fair amount of roots out. If I
wait a few years, can I plant in exactly the same spot? Or would I be
forced to move 6-8 feet away? If it is the latter, I simply cannot do
it. Could I plant anything in the same hole? A tall bush or something,
at least? The tree helped shade my deck plus I sort of “need” the
height, if you know what I mean…

Any suggestions would be appreciated.



Birch trees can live 100 years and more. But birch requires fairly strict
growing conditions, they are not tolerant of excessively dry or excessively
wet locations. With excessively dry or wet conditions birch tend to die
from the top down... if dying from the bottom up or equally all over than
I'd suspect some disease. That yours is on a steep grade (rather than a
low/level area) I suspect quick run off during rainy periods and therefore a
lack of water... birch require deep watering and especially as they become
more mature. Birch do best growing close to streams and lakes and in well
irrigated meadows as they require fairly rich and deep soils... if your soil
is sandy and/or drains rapidly then it is not a good spot for birch, it
would be rare indeed to find a stand of birch growing on hillsides. It
would be a shame to kill a birch of that size if it's not sick, I would have
a plant nursery check it out and perhaps move it to a more appropriate spot,
or they may take it in trade for a more appropriate tree. Not knowing where
you are located I can't recommend an alternative, but I will say that large
shade trees generally do not do well on steep grades, and birch are more a
specimen/accent tree, they grow tall and columnar without much spread and
don't have dense foilage so they are not considered a shade tree.