Silver Birch topping out?

[egs]

i have a little silver birch to top, its about 30ft high needs cut down to 10ft. in my opinion i would just remove it. what will happen if i took 20ft out of the tree.

 

what diseases are they subject to.

 

 

never really done much work birchs so any advice would be great

[Stephen Blair]

dont do it now, leave till the saps up. It will turn into a rotting pollard if it makes it but being a pioneer tree it will be on a downhill slope tbh.

[Bentonarb]

Dont do it , Topping birches is criminal and it will look terrible . All birches that i have seen topped have large amounts of decay as well as birch polypore. You may as well remove it if your going to reduce it that hard .

[morten]

i have a little silver birch to top, its about 30ft high needs cut down to 10ft. in my opinion i would just remove it. what will happen if i took 20ft out of the tree.

 

what diseases are they subject to.

 

 

never really done much work birchs so any advice would be great

 

Advise the customer against it, as it'll be ugly (at best), and will likely die within few years.

 

If the customer still wants it, butcher it . Cash in .

And expect to be asked to butcher it again or even fell it, in a few years time

[egs]

Advise the customer against it, as it'll be ugly (at best), and will likely die within few years.

 

If the customer still wants it, butcher it . Cash in .

And expect to be asked to butcher it again or even fell it, in a few years time

 

cheers

[Xerxses]

It will suffer from "Uglydangerous birchdisease" -Betula lookslikecrapcauseithasbeenhackedtobitsiensis. If you were a plumber would you do what the customer wanted or would you do it the proper way? Leave it alone or fell and replant!

[WoodED]

It will suffer from "Uglydangerous birchdisease" -Betula lookslikecrapcauseithasbeenhackedtobitsiensis. If you were a plumber would you do what the customer wanted or would you do it the proper way? Leave it alone or fell and replant!

 

i second that, you cant reduce or 'top' a birch

[geoff]

It would be ruined,they dont like it one bit!

[alex_m]

you cant reduce a birch

 

yes you can not the best course of action, but i have reduced 10 or so in the last year (at most 15%) to good effect.

[Ian C]

Dont do it , Topping birches is criminal and it will look terrible . All birches that i have seen topped have large amounts of decay as well as birch polypore. You may as well remove it if your going to reduce it that hard .