Heritage River Birch - ground cover??

grinder12000

14 years ago

I planted two clumps of the Birch a two years ago - both are perhaps 10 feet tall.

Do they need ground cover to shade their roots (as opposed to mulch)? Being young they get pretty much 100% sun at the moment.

If I need ground cover any suggestions for zone 4ish?

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Comments (7)

whaas_5a
14 years ago
Its not required thats for sure. If your priority is to get additional interest with a groundcover then I might go for it.

Gro low sumac is the most popular choice.

I have a single stem Heritage River Brich in a southeast exposure. I have azaelas to the back and groundcover roses to the front.

My clump river birch has south and west exposure, it only has daylilies in in the front...and its quite the vigorous grower. Its about 12ft after 2 years.

If your only planting the groundcover to shade the roots, I would pass on it and just provide supplemental water as necessary...and of course keep the 3" of mulch on there.
brandon7 TN_zone7
14 years ago
"Gro low sumac is the most popular choice."

Really?

"...it only has daylilies in in the front..."

I would hesitate to plant daylilies near the roots of a tree. Daylilies need frequently lifting and dividing. This is incompatible with minimizing tree root disturbance.
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That root you see is most likely seeking the moisture, which the mulch is holding. Three years ago, I planted three single trunked Heritage river birch trees in an area which sometimes gets flooded to an about 4 inch depth whenever the area experiences frequent rain periods. In the hot humid summers the soil dries out well. The Soil is a silty loam, and when I planted these trees I found that the soil had been hard packed by the frequent yearly flooding. The planting turned out to be a lot of work because of the effort it took to dig that hard of soil. This was especially hard since at the same time I installed 5 "T" stakes for keeping the wind from whipping the young trees and tearing their roots. This is on a vacant, slightly larger than half acre residential lot. That means any watering I give any of the trees I plant on that lot has to be trucked there. For this reason, I have not supplimental watered these riverbirch trees. Still, during the last three years, I have never seen any surface roots, growing from these birch trees, along the surface of the soil. Three years ago I could not find any clumped Heritage birch trees at any of my local nurseries. And many of my local nurseries did not have any birch trees for sale. The nursery owners, at that time, told me that the demand for birch trees had drastically decreased, so it was no longer affordable to stock birch trees. The reason for this decreased customer demand? Several nursery owners told me that customers found out that roots from birch trees they had planted did too much damage to their sidewalks and other concrete structures. Even though no nursery would sell me a 10-15 gallon sized clumped Heritage River birch, I still wanted that tree for this area on my lot where no concrete or asphalt stuctures would ever need to be installed near enough for the roots to damage. That is why, once I found a nursery who had 3 gallon sized potted single trunked Heritage birches for sale, I purchased three of them and planted them in a triangle about 2 feet apart. Since planting, our area has encountered a couple very dry and hot years with drastic sudden drop and rising of temps during those year's winters. We even experienced one winter event where light rain fell off and on for three days in 28-32 degree temps. This created heavy layers of damaging ice on the local trees' branches and even trunks. Many of these trees suffered massive branch failure, and some on some of the trees in the area, their main leader trunks even snapped off. Last winter when I checked my property for ice damage, I found that my Heritage birch trees needed to have a few broken branches pruned away. After pruning they looked quite bare. This years' growing season has turned out to be one of the wettest years I can remember occuring locally. So now those well established birch trees have recovered and look the strongest I have have ever seen them. Even with all the stress my trees have encountered, they still are not showing any signs of growing surface roots. I do not know why. Maybe it could be due to fact that, after the breakdown of the first application of mulch I gave them, I never reapplied any mulch under these birch trees. The only reason I have been able to get away with not continuing to mulch them might be because, growing nearby my birch trees on the neighboring property, there is a multi-trunked pecan tree, which provides afternoon shade for them.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years ago
is there some problem with the trees ... that brings this issue up????

if they are prospering... why do you want to mess with them????

after 2 years in the ground.. these trees should be basically 'free range' ... they should really not need much of anything from you from here on out ...

and the only reason a mulch bed would be needed is for aesthetics.. or to keep you or the lawn guys away from them with the weed whacker and the lawn mower ...

at this point.. they need no more of your love.. and frankly .... you can do more harm than good by messing with them .... though i see no problem with planting understory plants if you wish .... just dont worry about the trees ....

ken

ps: how big at planting????
grinder12000
Original Author
14 years ago
I just remember reading SOMEWHERE that their roots needed added attention.

Here in Wisconsin many RIGHT NOW are feeling a lot of stress, September has been MUCH warmer then July (coldest on record - hit the AVERAGE high only once) and we went 23 days without a drop of rain and only warm sunny skies.

I mulch but in the back of my mind I thought I read about ground cover.
whaas_5a
14 years ago
brandon7,

Yes, gro low sumac is an extremely popular choice in WI...more so with River birches.

Daylilies are perfectly fine under a tree's canopy (ecspecially those trees with filtered shade).

You do not have to constantly divide them in zone 4/5, every 4-5 years is sufficent. Let me put it this way I have 12 yr old Stella Daylilies, they are reblooming right now...sure the foilage isn't as green and vigorous as my 3yr strawberry candy.

Daylilies my spread more in zone 6/7, not here in 4/5.
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
14 years ago
LOL!! Brandon, I read that statement with exactly the same thought: "Gro low sumac is the most popular choice."
......sez who?? And why would one necessarily want the same approach as everyone else? There are literally hundreds of low growing, ground hugging choices for this situation if one wanted to cover the ground but it is not a requirement for river birch or any other tree. Mulch works perfectly fine if root protection is your intent.

And any perennial that needs periodic lifting and dividing is not a good choice for underplanting larger trees. The root disruption is potentially quite damaging to the trees and the longer one waits before any necessary dividing, the harder it is to accomplish and with a higher degree of disruption.
whaas_5a
14 years ago
Wow, you guys really picked that apart.

I should have said Gro Low sumac IS a popular choice...sorry.

Commonly used as a groundcover for River Birches here in our WI landscapes. For good reason, it tolerates shade, foilage remains clean and bright green all season and then turns a vibrant red in the fall....mearly an observation and suggestion.

Of course I prefaced all that with...Its not required thats for sure. If your priority is to get additional interest with a groundcover then I might go for it.

Grinder1200,

If you are from the MKE area, Johnsons Nursery has a massing of gro low sumac under their river briches if you want to check it out.

Heritage River Birch - ground cover??

Comments (7)

whaas_5a

brandon7 TN_zone7

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Heritage River Birch - ground cover??

Comments (7)

whaas_5a

brandon7 TN_zone7

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grinder12000
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