'Topping' Silver birch trees

[Squeezy]

Hi,

I live in the center of France and I have 3 silver birch trees near my barn*and I want to reduce the height in case we have strong winds and one falls on my*barn. 5 years ago my wife asked 2*local farmers to top them as can be seen in the first photo (they said this was the way). Now they need something doing as can be seen in the second photo but having read much about not topping birch what should I do please? I imagine if I just cut each large vertical say 20cm above*where they join the main trunk each will eventually send up a few large verticals again.

Cheers,

David

[treequip]

Sorry to say, you have made a rod for your own back, they didn't need topping in the first place but now they do.

 

Cut back to just above the last cuts and repeat on a cyclical basis ad infinitum

 

Or fell and start again.

[Mark Bolam]

Sorry to say, you have made a rod for your own back, they didn't need topping in the first place but now they do.

 

Cut back to just above the last cuts and repeat on a cyclical basis ad infinitum

 

Or fell and start again.

 

As above.

 

Not ad infinitum though. The tops will have started rotting out already.

[Old Mill Tree Care]

As above.

 

 

 

Not ad infinitum though. The tops will have started rotting out already.

 

 

As above, and above.

Fell and replant. They are small trees therefore easy to deal with.

 

 

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[Gary Prentice]

Why the fear that they'd fall on your barn? Probably a higher risk of a tractor damaging it!

[stihlmadasever]

Why the fear that they'd fall on your barn? Probably a higher risk of a tractor damaging it!

 

Yeah thats good...gave me a giggle

[Stubby]

Or me winning the lotto .

[Steve Bullman]

Fell them!

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

Fell them!

 

...and be sure to replacement plant with new SBs and let them be next time

[Mick Dempsey]

Standard practice over here.

 

No big deal, you can cut them back again.

 

Treequip is right in his advice.

[Arctostaphylos uva-ursi]

By continually cutting the tops out you are increasing the likelihood of decay setting in and therefore the risk of them failing in the future.

Cut them down and plant some apples on dwarf rootstocks in their place.

Planting with the same will only continue to feed your misplaced anxiety!