Hit the Dirt; Unusual Trees

Hi this is Claire Ackroyd and you're listening to hit the dirt. I'd like to talk about some of one of my favorite topics being a plant freak. I love to find a new plant to introduce people to new plant. And I would like to introduce you to four trees that I think are terribly underappreciated members of the ornamental repertoire. These are not obscure trees they've been around for a very long time they're not hard to grow they have no reason as far as I can tell for not being more commonly used. First one is the riff about the Native American but but chill in Niagara it's a native of stream beds and banks a little bit further south along the Eastern Seaboard. It is the only birch that is a semi-aquatic plant. It can withstand long periods of complete inundation and flooding. It's a nice tree that grows fairly fast through 60 to 70 feet it's an enormously useful plant because it will take very wet soils it's the only birch tree that will take very wet soils. It has a lot of

advantages over the popular white paper Birch that's grown so much here which is a very disease prone tree. The river birch doesn't appear to be as susceptible to leaf miner which will be foliate birches in the middle of summer and is almost completely immune to the bronze Birch borer which will take the top part of a birch tree. It's a lovely tree. It has white exfoliating bark that when it peels back reveals a sort of pinky tiny color on the knee. It's a very elegant thing. Looks like a birch it has all the characteristics of any other birch tree except for this very pretty sort of multi colored bark and its ability to grow under what conditions. Now the tree