Silver Birch Tree Training/Pruning

Ok, I'm starting a new border  I know I shouldn't as I have too much to do already but when my new kitchen gets done ( if ever!) I want o look out onto a small woods ( group of 5 trees)  under planted with spring bulbs and lots of interest...I also want to bring in more birds/habitat.


So, I've planted 2 silver birch, 3 paper bark birch. Cheap trees - they were bare root whips about 5 foot tall. I would like a clear stem, so I can under plant and walk through. They have small branches at the moment. When, what do I prune? Any links would be helpful. I have been looking but not found much yet...happy to read lots. Even a decent book maybe?

All I know about silver birch is that they "bleed" sap in spring as we used to tap ours to make Birch Sap wine. You don't want to prune them when the sap is rising.

All I know about silver birch is that they "bleed" sap in spring as we used to tap ours to make Birch Sap wine. You don't want to prune them when the sap is rising.

Ooh, I was just watching a YouTube video a few days ago about this, except the YouTuber liked to just drink it neat while sat under the tree in the morning. I tried fizzy pop made with it in the US a couple of years ago, and that was an interesting flavour - I thought it would be nicer without the fizz. 

I'd really like to try it and may see if I can give it a go next year if the pandemic allows me to visit my Grandma in the spring (I haven't seen her since Christmas Day 2019). She has a big garden with several silver birch trees that she planted about fifty years ago, so I reckon they would give a decent amount of sap. Of course, this is dependent on her allowing me to put a hole in one of her trees (and still being here into her 93rd year), but I think she would be quite interested to taste it herself!

Actually, I don't recommend tapping birch trees as, unless the holes are sealed tight afterwards (and we thought ours were), they weep, infection gets in and the trees suffer, Our trees never recovered and had to be cut down. Silver birch are short lived trees at best - maybe 30 years so it may not have been the tapping that killed them but I doubt that it helped.
Birch sap wine was nice - a bit resinous, like Greek Retsina, but not worth killing a tree for!

I won't prune yet....but I want a clean stem/raise the canopy. There's quite a few storms from top to bottom.
I read about the sap...I'm presuming it is less of a wound if I cut them off when the trees are young? There's literally nothing to be found on when I should start taking them off.

https://valiantarborist.com/blog/how-and...rch-trees/