looks like Betula pendula, European white birch

I think it looks like Betula utilis var. jacquemontii
Ronny

birch may or may not be good.. depending where you are.. but this one sure looks happy ...

some birch are prone to birch borer.. and some are resistant.. to some extent ... some memory brings to mind the cultivar 'whitespire' ...

dont know where you are.. but there are favored tree planting seasons ... to make it real easy for the newb ... so keep that in mind ... if you cant plant inside a few weeks ... then wait until fall .. no one plants trees.. in june/july/august [keeping them properly watered in the high heat of summer can get tricky] ... unless you have it professionally done , by masters of the trade .. who will warranty it up the ying yang ...

finally.. find the tree of your dreams.. dont limit yourself to bigboxstore ... mail order if you have to ... or have one ordered in to a high end nursery ...

finally ... the bigger the tree.. the higher its stresses.. and the longer it takes to get re-established.. and growing like it should .. do not be mislead by intant gratification on large transplants... a 3 to 5 foot tree.. will respond.. and get re-established faster than something 10+ feet.. and probably outgrow it inside a few years ...

planning on a fall planting.. gives you plenty of time.. to design your whole lay out.. build beds.. and really make a statement ... if you were redoing the kitchen.. this would be understood ... its a process.. so do the same.. with the landscape ...

good luck ...

ken

ps: the spire in the rearview.. cracks me up .. i dont know why .... lol

pps: finally.. someone who turned off the computer.. and found a live.. well grown specimen.. and snapped a pic ... brilliant.. i cant tell you how many peeps.. these days.. want to do all their gardening.. online.. whats that all about ....???

Bark and branching does look like that of Himalayan white birch but weeping twigs are wrong for that one.

If Betula pendula-and I think it to be that species of birch-very susceptible to bronze birch borer, a serious pest of white-barked birch. Far better you would be to source our native paper birch-Betula paperyfera-and give it what it wants, moist soil and its head in the sunshine. Paper birch have gotten an undeserved bad rep. When properly sited, and this includes what state you live in, lol, it is still the "best" birch for landscape use.

"Whitespire", a tree developed here in WI is a real dog in the aesthetics dept. It was erroneously described as a Japanese birch for decades but it is a gray birch. You can do much better.

Oftentimes, people tout the river birch as being "native" around where I live , but it's not. It hates alakalinity in the soil and will reward you with off-color foliage and constantly dropping leaves all summer long. Good in acid, sandy soil areas, but not much of anywhere else.

Yellow birch is a fantastic tree but is really a tree of northern (Or mountian) forests, not dry, sun-baked front yards in suburbia. These have excellent resistance to BBB but again, are not really well adapted to life in a lawn.

+oM

Betula pendula around here, and it is our native birch, is not that white. It is more silvery with dark markings. The really white one we see mots of is B utilis var. jaquemontii. But that is upright, not semi weeping like the picture.

Thanks to everyone for the info and the comments, I really appreciate it. I am going with the Betula Pendula, if I can find them. I'm in Northern Wyoming (Zone 4/5) and so far I haven't been able to locate anything within 200 miles. Might have to special order for next spring.

As I tried to tell you, Betula pendula is a magnet for the serious insect pest bronze birch borer. If this insect exists in your area, and I'm not sure whether it does, it will attack your tree, killing the top and working its way down. Do as you wish, but that is the very worst choice,in my 40-yrs.-in the landscaping industry opinion!

+oM

I'm really doubtful you will find a Betula pendula with bark that white. I don't know much about birches but I do know B pendula as it is native and extremely common here. I have a B pendula 'Youngii' in my own garden. The tree in the photo does not look like it to me.

I believe Betula pendula generally does have white bark, youngii included. Floral_uk - is it possible the birch you are observing in your area are downy birch (Betula pubescens)? See this link: http://www.arkive.org/silver-birch/betula-pendula/

Trester - you might try to locate "Rocky Mountain Splendor" which probably has better borer resistance than straight Betula pendula. See link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rocky Mountain Splendor Birch

No, the birch I see every day are Betula pendula. That is one of the 2 the native species here and it is all over the place. It is one of the first colonising trees in many areas. Downy Birch is also native here but frequents damper soils, even waterlogged, and the leaves are a different shape. It will hybridise with B pendula.

abordave, you say ''I believe' B pendula does have white bark... 'does that mean you don't actually see that many? I can turn around now and see B pendula 'Youngii' out of my window. The bark is not white. It is silvery grey and has many dark markings. You can see the colour in the background of this picture.

I have got both wild b. pendula and b. pubescens growing everywhere around me and I agree with floral_uk, the tree in the starting post is too white to be any of those. The growth form is not familiar either. I guess it is some asian birch species.

Betula pendula used to be commonly planted here, but the vast majority of them have been killed by borers, and as a result most nurseries don't grow/sell them any more. They definitely have white bark as I've observed (although older trunks become furrowed and blackish-gray). A search for "Betula pendula" will return web pages showing trees with white bark. It's possible your local climate may have some influence on the bark color.

The tree in the OP's photo may be Betula pendula 'Laciniata', aka "Cutleaf Weeping Birch"

Exactly...we used to see plenty of the pendula planted here. I don't know why that was done except that all too often, folks tend to equate a plant that's from somewhere else as somehow being better than the native version. But beyond question, they were white-barked birches. Kind of surprised we're getting hung up on that detail! And yes, as arbordave says, B. pendula, as is true of all birch species, developes a more furrowed, darker and "un-birchlike" look at the base of older trees. But the upper bark is still gleaming white.

Many birch species are able to hybridize. Could it be that where you live-floral uk-all of the B. pendulas are actually hybrids with another species? Things like this do happen. for example, in my area, nearly all bur oaks and/or swamp white oaks are actually natural hybrids between the two, aka Schuettes oak (Sp?).

+oM

The two key points for Betula pendula are the weeping twigs and the black marks on the lower trunk. If it weren't for the white Himalayan birch bark of the tree asked about it would be a clear B. pendula 'Laciniata', which makes spectacular specimens on irrigated sites east of the Cascade Mountains here. The next thing would be to get a closer look, at the bark and later, the leaves.

Having seen Betula pendula beside Betula utilis var. jacquemontii I would not call B pendula 'white'. Obviously, 'white' is subjective but jaquemontii is glaringly white, even in a damp climate, whilst our native silver birch is exactly that. The bark is startling different on the two trees. Both thrive here and anyone wanting a truly white barked birch would not plant B pendula.

B pendula and B pubescens do hybridise but they are so common here that it is unlikely that every specimen I see is a hybrid. B pendula, in particular is all over the place in the wild.

This is utilis var. jaquemontii in a local park in November. Compare the trunk colour with the pendula 'Youngii' in my garden.

This post was edited by floral_uk on Sat, May 3, 14 at 13:11

And this is B pendula as a street tree in town. Note the entirely different trunk colour - not white at all.

And a self sown Birch, maybe pendula, maybe pubescens, maybe a hybrid, in a local wall - they really are very common here.

This is betula pendula laciniata - commonly called cutleaf weeping birch - clump form - about 50 years old.

A beautiful tree throughout all 4 seasons.

Here is a younger one in the background, pruned to tree form.

Hi shillanorth

One of the reasons that I found this tree so attractive is the low trunk with wide canopy. In your last picture you mention that the tree has been "pruned to tree form". So is the low trunk normal, or it pruned to be low?

Thanks

Maybe the laciniata has that bush form, but the straight species does not. Betula pendula is a strict tree and will only have more than one stem if cut down in an early age.

At one time, you could get them in ``tree form`` or ``clump form``. I see the local nursery offers them in tree form only - I think most people prefer this type - there are several examples around town of both types - a very popular, graceful looking tree.

Clump form from a commercial grower is several planted close together. Over time this backfires unless the combination if planted where side shade keeps it vertical, otherwise the trunks lean away from one another.

The low forking seen in these pictures is do to site conditions - and noticed how the second tree is just like the one asked about, except for the clearly visible black areas.

And that the bark is white until it gets old enough to be partly black, this is typical for B. pendula. At first there is some brown, then mostly white with small black areas, followed by large black areas once enough time has elapsed.

The tree first asked about probably has a little black on it that we can't see in the photo used.

I took a closer look at the ones in the neighbourhood and it looks to me like they probably all started out multi-stemmed(I guess I erroneously referred to it as clump form) and at a very early stage, lower branches were pruned out on some and others were left to grow their own way like the one my parents planted 50 some years ago.