Argh, that sounds frustrating.

My experience with grey birch is that they literally grow like (beautiful) weeds in a natural setting. The clump near our back pasture produces so many seedlings my husband has to mow to keep them down. It doesn't seem to have any pests. A white birch I planted died within a year, however.

I haven't had much luck planting natives, personally. Maybe they're persnickity about soil ph or something. I usually content myself with growing a named cultivar (is that the word?) of a native species. Selective breeding seems to produce sturdier plants.

Re: the serviceberry, I lost an expensive tree-form on recently. It had taken me ages to find a pair, and then one of them died. And the remaining one doesn't look too good.

The magnolia, however, is doing great.

Just found a devil beetle on the birch. Yeah Carol, that has been my experience too, saw them growing like weeds in the wild so I thought they might be hardy in my yard. I know that birches are notorious for being short lived due to bronze birch borer, but I had read that this native was more resistant. Heck, my tree isn't even big enough around to get borers yet, and it's already had aphids and is now on to JBs.