One of my favorite types of trees is the Paper Birch. I love the white bark and the way the park peels like paper. I’ve always thought these were cool looking trees. The remind me of being in the north woods of Minnesota or Wisconsin. When we bought our current house, I was excited to see that there was a Paper Birch tree in the front yard. It was quite a tall tree, as well — I’d say 25 feet tall and a good 10 inches in diameter at the base of the trunk.

Last summer I noticed that after every storm, our tree was shedding branches. I didn’t think much of it. These were pretty good storms with lots of wind. For some reason it didn’t strike me as being odd that this tree had never done that in the past and that no other trees in the yard were having this problem. As the summer came to a close, the tree started looking less and less healthy. The smaller Paper Birch in my neighbor’s yard looked equally unhealthy.

My neighbor called the local nursery and chatted with them about it and learned about a pest called the Golden Birch Beetle. They told him what to look for and he went out and checked. Sure enough — his tree was infested with them. He walked over to my yard and looked at my tree and found my tree had them too. After confirming the infestation, we looked up what to do about it. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing you can do. Once infested, the larva of the beetle eat the tree’s phloem, which ultimately wrecks the ability of the tree to move nutrients up the trunk to the branches. The damage will almost always kill the tree — it is just a matter of how long it will hang on.

Our’s didn’t hang on for very long. This spring as all the trees greened up in the neighborhood, the birch tree stayed dead looking. I didn’t want to cut it down, but I finally gave in last weekend and called a neighbor to help me cut it down. It only took a couple of hours to take down the tree and pull the stump out with his truck and the tree is now just a memory and a stack of firewood.

The next question is — what kind of tree do I replace it with? I certainly won’t put up another Paper Birch. I could plant a species of River Birch, which are similar looking, but resistant to the beetle. I could also go with a completely different kind of tree and go with something like a Crimson Maple or Silver Maple, both of which are beautiful trees and grow relatively rapidly. What do you think? What is your favorite type of tree for the front yard?

–Pete