A big old copper beech tree is a focal point of my garden, and each time I look out the window at it admiringly these days, I feel the same love and gratitude I always have for its grandeur – but also a deepening twinge of worry. 

These are increasingly tough time for beeches – both European ones like my copper beech and on a far bigger environmental scale, the precious native beech trees of our Eastern North American forests. 

I asked Beth Brantley of Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories, who is speaking July 18 on the future of beeches at the annual in-person and virtual Woody Plant Conference at Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College to join me today.

Beth, whose doctorate is in plant pathology, is the Northeast research scientist with Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories, providing support to Bartlett’s regional offices, conducting arboriculture research, and sharing her knowledge through teaching and presentations. Beech leaf disease – one of the newer challenges facing beech trees today – is a particular interest of Beth’s, and we talked about that and other pest and pathogen pressures facing these important trees.   

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