Silverbirch

When does neglect become abuse. I don’t know but I reckon this tree is close to it.

I collected this tree from a dis-used scrapyard about 2004. It was growing on an old path which was covered with a thin layer of grit, stones and loose soil which had gathered over the years. I literally just pulled it up lightly and it came away with the complete rootball intact. It was growing in no more than  2 inches of rubbish. I potted it up and let it grow for a year or so and then gave it a basic first style. As the pic above shows it has been left unattended for 4 years approx.

My plan was to clean up the root mass as far as is safely possible entering into autumn. The heavy grass growth was largely due to feeding heavily with chicken pellets in the last 6 weeks or so.

Cleaned and Repotted

This is the tree cleaned up and temporarily repotted in a normal plastic seed tray.

Nebari and Trunk

 These last two pics show the excellent nebari and trunk which is now turning its natural silver colour. I understand that this silver bark only appears on mature trees so this is giving some indication of age which I reckon to be 10-15 years at least.

Nebari