All That and a Bra Full of Chips

     I love birch trees.  I especially love Paper Birch (bitula payrifera), the ones with the white bark; however, it seems they grow to a certain size, turn spongy, and fall over.  River Birch (bitula nigra) are not as susceptible to the bronze birch borers that attack white birches.  When Mike and I built this house, I decided there would be a birch tree in the landscape.  I settled for the peely bark of a River Birch and planted it in what I thought was the perfect spot.

2009
This tree was the fulfillment of a dream.  What can I say?  I dream small.

     My friend Eva took one look at my tree and predicted, "You're going to wish you hadn't planted that tree so close to the house."
     "I'll keep it small with pruning," was my response.
     Within two years this deciduous object of my heart's desire had grown six feet taller.  In the fall, I pruned it back severely.  "You probably killed that tree," another birch expert supposed.  No such luck.  The following spring the birch sprouted three branches where one was cut.  It was so dense that two bird families took up residence in it.  By its third autumn, it seemed to have regained every inch of its former height.
     By 2014, I was hacking away at my birch in the early summer and again in the fall.  It seemed to take only two or three months for the new growth to rise over the rain gutters and spread out over the roof.  All sorts of critters were gaining access to the shingles from the branches.  My love affair with bitula nigra was over.
     Today Mike and I gathered our tools - pruners, shovels, rope, an extension cord, and the electric chain saw.  An electric chain saw is a girl tool.  It's light weight, and all I have to do is plug it in and press two buttons to get the wood chips flying.  I love this power tool.  I bought it for me, and I never let Mike use it.  We dismembered the tree pretty quickly, getting the two trunks down to about four feet tall.
     I read that birch trees don't damage foundation walls since they do not have a particularly strong root system.  We decided to dig around the tree to determine if we would be able to get it out, roots and all.

Looking from above, this is how the root system grew.  The tree was in a large black plastic pot when I bought it.  The roots grew around and around, circling the pot during its "captivity."  Once in the ground, the roots grew out from the original root ball forming a shallow network.  We cut through the roots with our pruners.  When we got to the bottom of the original root ball (a little more than a foot deep), we began rocking the tree.  We cut under the root ball with pruners.         

This was all that remained of the once towering tree... until I undressed for a shower and discovered a bra full of wood chips!