Gray Birch Tree (Betula Populifolia) – 3 Pack Of 1.5 Quart Pots

Plant Type:  Deciduous Tree

Flower Color:  Yellow male flowers, Green for female flowers

Flowering Period:  Spring

Flower Type:  Catkin

Fragrant Flowers:  No

Foliage Color:  Medium Green
Fall Foliage Color:  Yellow

Fragrant Foliage:  No

Bark Color:  Chalky White to Light gray with Black markings

Attracts:  Birds, Beneficial Pollinators, Visual Attention

Resistances:  Cold Temperatures (-40F), Deer, Drought (moderate), Wet Soil

When it comes to trees that shine during the winter months, it doesn’t get much better than the Gray Birch, a fast-growing North American native that sports outstanding white trunks with contrasting black to dark gray branches and chevrons and reddish-brown twigs. It naturally sends up new shoots from near the base to can be grown as a multi stemmed cluster or a single trunked tree, depending on your desire and pruning. Whether single trunk or multi-trunk, there is a narrow branched crown of glossy green leaves that flutter in the breeze turn a buttery yellow color during fall. The attractive leaves are up to 3 inches long deltate in shape and doubly serrated along their their margins. The bases of the leaves are broadly obtuse, while their tips are elongated and slowly tapering. Gray Birch is incredibly adaptable thriving in wet or dry soils, including sandy and rocky loams. This is a cool climate tree thriving in USDA Zones 3 to 6 where temperatures don’t go much above 70s F range for too long during the summer. 

Edith Roberts and Elsa Rehman wrote about the Gray Birch in ‘American Plants for American Gardens’ saying “Wherever there are grey birches, Nature is in one of her lightest moods. These grey-white trees of slender form gather together In fairy-like groves. Their slim grace is accentuated by the way they often spring up in fives and sixes from a single root. When they are young, they are grey-brown, but later on, they are phantom white with black twigs and black notches. The effect is full of that mystery that etchings and delicate pencil drawings have. The gossamer quality is ever present; in the spring when their filmy foliage is light filled, in summer when their green is soft, in autumn when it is all sunlit yellow, and even in winter when the trees take on again their keynote colors from the snow and dark earth.”