Paper Birch
Betula papyrifera
A northern native prized for brilliant white, peeling bark that glows in winter, and clear yellow fall colour. It's at its best where summers are cool, in moist, acid soil with its roots mulched. Heat, drought and pollution stress it and shorten its life, so it's a tree for the North rather than the city.
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- Mature size
- 60 × 35 ft
- 18.5 × 10.5 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 2a–7a
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to moist
- Blooms
- Apr
- Fall color Oct
Paper Birch at its mature size
A mature Paper Birch grows 50 to 70 feet tall and 25 to 45 feet wide, taller than most people.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension, The Morton Arboretum.
Through the year
What Paper Birch looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Dormant · Nov–Apr
Bare fine twigs over the white trunk.
In leaf · May–Sep
Open crown of green toothed leaves over a white trunk.
Fall · Oct
Leaves turned bright yellow.
Photos
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Growing Paper Birch
- Grows well in
- The Northeast and the Midwest.
- Growth rate
- Fast
- Good for
- Specimen, deer resistant, pollinators, fall color, winter interest, and fast growing
- Leaves
- Drops its leaves in winter
- Native to
- Northern North America
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Paper Birch, that’s about 35 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Paper Birch in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other birches
River Birch
Paper BirchAll drawn to the same scale.