Life's a birch and a quandary.

Betula utilis (dwarf?)

 It's in the wrong spot...and though it stayed sorta dwarfish its first decade or so, it's getting bigger and bigger. I can only imagine what its roots are doing to the waterfall...I obtained it decades ago, from a Czech collector who got it somewhere in the Himalaya: I've lost the data, dagnabbit!

Pretty much the same picture as the last, only taken a half hour earlier in the half-light. Even without sun on it it seems to glow the week or so it's in fall color.

I should be honest and tell you it isn't as glorious as this every year. Some years it gets frosted. Or we have storms that knock down or blow off the leaves. But for the magical years when it turns like this it's a centerpiece of my rock garden--which is to say it's a centerpiece of my heart!

Though not obvious, if you peek through the leaves you can see the characteristic white paperbark...which I love.

I finish with this picture of alpenglow on Mount Evans in the background and self illumined birch in the foreground. Notice the giant leaves on the lower right: I don't think it intends to stay dwarf much longer!

Jan reminded me the other day ("that birch has to go"-- which I already knew). It is overpowering the very center of the rock garden. I've tried cuttings. It produces massive seed crops which I share widely (no one has had germination). It's way too big to transplant.

It's a quandary. I can at least enjoy it one last autumn...and start thinking what to do next in that crucial, central spot.