Question from Kat:

Hi Pat, Like some others, we have fallen in LOVE with white birch trees. We live in San Diego, and our home has a cathedral ceiling with large plate glass windows that go practically to the ceiling (though they are on the less sunny side of the house). For the past 2 years we have been dreaming of having a large birch tree indoors that would span the 2 stories. I know it sounds like a pipe dream, but I am determined to find a way to make my dream come true. I have even thought about somehow preserving a dead birch and placing it in our home so that we can admire and enjoy the beauty of it’s impressive bark. Without leaves, they are still stark and stunning specimens. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts or suggestions with regard to either a living or preserved birch indoors in So Cal? Thank you!! Kat

Answer from Pat:

Your idea is not so crazy. A few years ago I was passing through a great city— Las Vegas, Nashville, St. Louis, Boston or New York or perhaps Atlanta— Anyway some great city—can’t remember which and I stayed overnight in a hotel, probably an airport hotel, such as a Hilton, where the rooms were all up one, or perhaps two, sides of the building and curved with glass walled balconies you walked down to access the rooms, which had doors all visible from the lobby and inside the other side (which was a very high ceilinged lobby) they had a forest of birch trees just as you describe. While going to the restaurant, I looked closely at the trees to see if they were alive. I think they were preserved in some way, but they looked alive.

I do not think that you could get a live birch tree to live inside your home unless you created conditions in your home that would be too moist for the health of your home or yourselves.

However, having seen this dreamlike hotel interior mentioned above, I am sure you could get the effect. Yes an entire tree including the white can be preserved. i know this since I have seen it. There was a lot of glass and black marble in the room and black leather furniture. Pretty stunning. So weird I can’t remember where this was. I must have been going or coming back from somewhere and had jet lag since i simply cannot remember where I was or whom I was with if with anyone! But I sure do remember those birch trees.

Okay I think I have found what you want. Also I am now pretty sure the city where I saw this was St. Louis. Perhaps the folks you need to contact are “Preserved Treescapes International” http://www.treescapes.com/case_reptrees1.html To make it even better, seems as if these folks have an outlet in Vista. I think something like this would look great in your living room but to do it right you need to build a raised bed inside the room that fits in with the decor so that would lift it up and give it added height. Then you could put artificial moss on the ground around it and leave round spaces to slip in live potted plants.