The Humble Sycamore

[Bob Rolfe]

Love em or hate em..... they give us all a great deal of work don't they. Personal ive had my mind changed about them over a couple of years ago. i use to think of them as weeds that just grow anywhere ruin the customers garden by laying seeds by the thousand blowing up against walls and dislodging panels and pushing walls over, then you have the honey dew that comes off the leaves and turns anything it comes across a dirty black through sooty molds, this a by product of the gazillion green fly that scatter like dust once you disturb them, the crawl in your ears, nose and mouth your hair feels like you've got nits and you need to see Nora the nurse. Then you have the other side of it the Sycamore is a proper tree in all the sense of it in many cases growing to over 80ft given the right circumstances and if they all disappeared over night how much would the landscape change . People who think of it as a weed take another look at it from a distance, its got great shape, a really good tree form and in spring and autumn has great colour, I always look forward to the first leaves of the sycamore sprouting because i know that in a very short amount of time the landscape is going to be transformed into summer due to the amount of them there are about, they are great to climb also and i know i can always get good shape on a reduce or a thin and theres rarely much dead wood, also you loggers i believe it good to burn. Its hard to believe its not really a native, not sure myself where it originated i thought it came from Greece myself, or that way brought over by the romans but Ive also heard people say they think it came by way of america or Canada.... don't know? What i do know is I like the sycamore an count it as one of my favorite trees

 

Whats your thoughts i would be interested like to know ?

[tommer9]

I love em for the same reasons as you, and also- the timber is beautiful, stable and eminently saleable, although drying it is full of potential pitfalls. Oh yeah, it is a species that has kept me in work for four weeks solid recently!!

[geoff]

love the way their seeds take and shoot. I taught my daughter that to catch a falling leaf in the autumn, and keep it until you catch another the following autumn,as it will bring good luck for the year.(things you teach kids)! watching the family scurrying around in a windy day to manage the task is a thing i look forward to each year!

[Mark Bolam]

Love 'em pesonally. For all reasons mentioned.

 

Some big untouched ones down here are truly spectacular.

[Bob Rolfe]

im working with an older arb lad at the mo and were looking at a development plan for the woodland were in. he s at it "well we will take the sic out and that one and that one" and so on and im at it " no let leave that one and lets teke outy all the lanky deseased bloody alders" its a tug of war... lol

[treewizard]

love them for all the above reasons also, in my top five trees

[Will Hinchliffe]

The Tolpuddle Sycamore in Dorset has fantastic history. Its 320 years old. It was 150 years old when trade unionism was born under its bows. It sheltered Agricultural workers banned from church's and meeting places. They hung out under the tree and grumbled about there pay and working conditions. They formed an illegal workers group. The landowners had the men arrested for swearing an illegal oath. They were deported to Australia but then pardoned after public outcry.

[David Humphries]

I derive aesthetic pleasure from individuals or small groups of Mature specimens, and the fact that they house the greatest biomass of insect life of any of the large Trees of these shores is of some ecological benefit, however I am very aware of the fact that this is a Climax species and will genetically purge the woods of diversity.

 

So, currently falling off the fence toward unwilling acceptance.

 

 

 

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[skyhuck]

Belting trees!!!!!!!!!! love em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Why do the British hate a success???????????????????

[Big 'Ammer]

His Lordship; "Take all those sycamores out. They are weeds in the woods and nothing will live on them."

 

"I will, your Lordship! ....... specially if they are rippled."

 

"Pardon?"

 

"I said, I will your Lordship, its straightforward and they'll be no trouble."