Silver Birch

[Decorhate]

I’ve got a silver birch in my garden that we inherited when we moved here over 20 years ago.
Has being growing quietly without any problems - until this year. I noticed there were less leaves than usual & a few branches didn’t have any. Now the leaves that are there are turning yellow already.

Neighbours have had a large home office build this year, almost up to the fence, with a concrete base. The tree is only a few feet away. Is it possible the roots had extended into their garden & have been damaged by the works? Will it survive?

Silver Birches are relatively short-lived trees, so it might be getting on in years by now anyway. But they also have quite a shallow root system - so it's quite possible that this has been fairly extensively damaged by the excavations for your neighbours' building. In which case, the tree's ability to take up water and nutrients would be badly affected - which could well explain the patchy growth and premature leaf loss. And if you've also experienced prolonged spells of dry weather this could have made matters worse.

They are quite short lived. But try putting a seep hose down to give it more water after giving it a good couple of buckets of water and put some mulch round it. It might just perk up. Otherwise - happy choosing a new tree....

Oh dear. Yes, that's the cause. My neighbours did the same to my laburnum tree when they build their garage.

Thanks all. I’ll give it more water for a bit & see if that helps. Garden is very dry this year.