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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60337

  • Drx10
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Hello

I am new to this forum, but have been able to keep many bonsai trees alive for many years. I am not great at the styling end of this hobby, but I try.

My Silver Birch grows very large leaves. Is it possible to defoliate a silver birch? Time of year?

I live in the Detroit, Michigan area of the US.

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60338

  • m5eaygeoff
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I would not defoliate, I would leaf cut apex only. I might do the larger lower ones as well depending on the vigour of the tree.I have several and none of them have big leaves, so I don't do any leaf cutting. If you are doing it then now is the time again depnding on how strong the tree is.

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60339

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Thank you for the response.

The leaves have always been as big as a baseball!

Not sure what I may be doing wrong...full sun all the time.

I am letting grow out this year to thicken the trunk.

I just hate the leaf size

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60340

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Wow! Baseball size! According to Google 230 mm. My uncle Said that everything is bigger over there. But this is extrem!

Onestly I need a Photo to Believe that it is really silver beech (betulus pendula) , which normaly max out at 50 mm, but where i live seldom 30 mm.

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60344

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Ditto, mine are small, and I do not need to do anything to the leaves.

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60347

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Here is a picture

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60349

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Looks like hornbeam on my small screen and with my weak eyes. Definettely not silver beech.

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60350

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What species -latin name- is silver beech? When I search for the species, Nothofagus comes up. But that has leaves the size of a mans thumbnail.

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60354

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Betula pendula is silver birch. It could be a Birch but a different species, even in the ground the leaves do not get that big.

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Silver Birch Leaf Size Reduction 3 years 10 months ago #60361

  • FrankC
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The leaves of silver birch can easy be 10cm x 8cm; but every year they gonna be a little bit smaller.
You can remove the leaves, but I wouldn't do it on a tree in training, just remove 50% of the (biggest) leaves

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