The weekend before last John and I went to nearby Ohaupo to see the TreeChurch. It's a very special place, as we've told you. We were particularly struck by the white birches, which are the same variety of tree, Betula jacquemontii, that we have along our front roadside Pet Paddock here at Struan Farm. Only ours aren't quite so brilliantly white, and we wondered why.
It turns out that the owner of the TreeChurch, a seriously committed nurseryman, peels and washes them twice a year to keep them looking this amazing. I'd thought about testing this out on one of our trees to see what would happen, but John beat me to it. At least with the peeling. We'll now watch them to see if they whiten up, right now I think they look a bit pink... perhaps they're embarrassed to have been stripped?
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