Nurseries usually offer a wide variety of birch species as early seedlings in practical containers. However, if you would like to propagate your young birch all by yourself, there are three options available: moving a small plant, growing it from seeds or propagating the birch from a branch.
How can I propagate a birch tree?
Birch trees can be propagated by moving young plants, sowing or propagating from a branch. To do this, you can either dig up seedlings, remove seeds from the fruit cluster or cut cuttings from shoots and root them.
Propagate birch trees made easy
As pioneer plants, birch trees colonize fallow areas particularly quickly. That's why you'll usually find numerous small specimens next to a full-grown birch tree: just dig up a small plant and take it with you to your garden. If necessary, it is advisable to ask the owner beforehand. The birch is a shallow rooter, so you can dig it up to 1-2 meters high, preferably in April. The young tree should be in the so-called mouse-ear stage of early shoot formation. It's best to cut out balls carefully with a spatula to protect the roots. Plant and water the birch tree in your own garden.
Growing birch from seeds
Sowing is also a very promising way to grow your own birch tree. All you need is a birch tree with ripe fruit and a pot with soil:
- The seeds can be easily removed from the brownish fruit cluster from the end of March to mid-April. Simply crumble it in the palm of your hand and then hold it over the pot of soil. So the seeds spread themselves.
- Turn the soil once with your hands.
- If the young birch tree growing from it is strong enough, you can plant it in a planting hole in the garden.
Propagation from branches
Since the birch is a pioneer plant designed entirely for distributing seeds, you need to provide a cutting with optimal conditions to encourage it to root. This works like this:
- Take off a strong shoot tip cutting at least 10 to 20 centimeters long from the desired birch species. It should be solidly woody at the bottom with several eyes and green at the top.
- Strip the leaves from the lower part.
- Remove larger leaves at the top with scissors.
- Tip off the flower heads, they waste unnecessary energy
- Carefully and as straight as possible place the cutting in a small pot with soil
- Position in partial shade – direct sun would burn it
- Keep moist – not wet
- Wait for rooting, the first roots grow out of the pot, you can plant the young birch.
