It's the inner most part

It looks like the wound is closing up very well. That tree has a good chance to survive

Should I call an arborist? The inside feels very spongy. I am a novice to trees.

It looks like it is healing up well. As much as it has encapsulated, it will probably be alright even if the heart wood gets a little spongy. It's unlikely that the limbs that fell are related to the wound. Birches drop limbs pretty regularly.

P.S. There's little an arborist could do at this point.

OK. Do paper Birch require any special care? Can I do anything to increase its health?

Only thing I'd recommend is to pay attention to water needs. And this does not necessarily mean get the hose out. If you're getting roughly 1 inch of rainfall per week, you're good to go. Only if it gets quite dry would I water, and then, you really need to water the whole area around the tree, not just a little spot up against the trunk. I don't know where you are, so it is hard for me to guess what your moisture status is. But many areas of the country east of the Mississippi are doing very well for moisture.

+oM

come on guys... location.. location.. location ...

if its out in the middle of the lawn .. ignore it ... trees heal themselves ... enjoy spending the next decade watching it either die or survive ....

if its planted 2 feet from the house ... you MIGHT have problems ...

how about a pic of the whole situation ...

so whats your idea on the light...??? ... it cooked the bark over the years?????

ken

I am not aware of any impact degree of proximity to house/other buildings would have on this person's line of inquiry-what to do or not do about a trunk wound. Nor do the lily of the valley leaves at base of this tree indicate it to be of massive size.

What am I missing here Ken? I mean, aside from the fact long-noticed here that in your world, any tree within site of a home is too close to that home!

+oM

Hi, sorry it is on the north side of the house. The light was touching the bark when we moved in. I redid the mulch beds, took the light out this weekend. Redoing the landscape as the home was vacant for 2 years. Here is another picture. Tree is in northern Illinois.

This post was edited by reeko05 on Mon, Aug 25, 14 at 11:59

Looks pretty good from what I can tell. Now just to frame this correctly, in nature, paper birch is a pioneer species. That is, it is among those tree types which rapidly colonize land following disturbance, ie. fire, windstorm, logging operation, etc. And then, true to most pioneer species characteristics, it does its thing and is dead and gone within the first, oh, 100 years of that site, oftentimes much sooner. The best paper birch I've ever seen are those along the shores of the Great Lakes and those within that same general region within deep conifer swamps. for example, on land that I own near the tiny village of Suring, WI, I have what are regionally known as "cedar swamps". And within these nearly-pure stands of Thuja occidentalis are some very large, very impressive paper birch. Areas like this pretty much never dry out, pretty much never get baked by the sun, pretty much are always on the cool side.......that is ideal birch country.

Now no matter how hard you work at it, your yard is never going to match such areas for the key attributes of cool moisture. That surely doesn't mean the tree won't grow there-your tree being exhibit A-but it does mean the total lifespan will very likely be lesser. That's just the way it is, there's nothing much to be done about that. The two things you can do, is like I said earlier, if it gets dry, water the entire root zone, which for all intents and purposes = watering the lawn in that area, and perhaps mulch, although I think you already have garden beds, etc. in the area, so that amounts to about the same thing.

You could do prophylactic sprays for birch leafminer, since that non-fatal insect can weaken the tree, making it more susceptible to the fatal bronze birch borer, but now you're messing with insecticides, and with each passing day, I personally feel it to be less justifiable to treat landscape trees with products which can and do affect pollinating insects, etc. No, birch are not insect-pollinated, but the material is still being introduced into the landscape, and off-target effects can be significant.

+oM

+om ... if it had the potential to crush thru her roof and kill her in the night ... to me... it really wouldnt matter .. it would have to go with interior rotting wood ...

this new pic ... puts it out in the lawn ... enjoy watching whatever happens.. might take 20 year to die and fall apart ... or maybe the next wind storm ... who knows ...

it sure looks like a birch.. but i dont know about the paper birch.... is this what mature paper birch bark looks like???? .. but it doesnt matter to this issue ...

so it was a light that was focused upward to light the tree ...???

ken

Looks like you have a nice healty tree with a dense canopy. No signs of choloris either which is a good sign.

Your tree will inevitably rot and fail but it could be decades before this happens.

I'd be inclined to keep that immedidate area, say 6" or so, clear of vegetation.

Yes Ken. It appears it was a floodlight pointed upward. It loosened and instead of being pointed up, fell and rested on the tree trunk. The bulb when I bought the home, rested in the middle of the split trunk
I took some clippers and trimmed back the spread open trunk as it stuck put quite far.

Typical growth form of an open-grown PB. In the woods, they're apt to be much more upright and vertical in orientation. But yeah, this is pretty typical of a yard tree of this type. Now just for fun-there's really no more to talk about with that trunk wound-what state is this paper birch in? It's rather amazing, the difference from say where I live, near Green Bay WI, to say, Chicagoland, in terms of the longevity of some forest tree species, this being the perfect example. I am led to believe trees of this type last only a few short years down there, 200 miles south of me, yet going once again into the cool darkness of my woods, I'm reasonably certain these PB are much older, and they're not half-dead things either, for the most part, but rather, still vigorous and growing. Location, location, location! But I don't mean by that how close to a house the thing sits. I'm talking lines of latitude on a globe-the further away from the equator, the better for this true denizen of the north!

Some areas, the river birch can be a better bet. I hate how they're always on listings of "native" tree species though. Where I happen to live, river birch is never-and I do mean never-found out in the wild. Paper birch on the other hand is quite common, depending more than anything else on age of stand....the older it gets, the fewer paper birch will be left from the initial colonization.

Then there's the true king of all birch species-yellow birch. That one though is a true forest tree, and another northerner to boot. Still, it might be interesting to see that species brought into commerce a bit more, just to see what it can do, and where.

+oM