Re: Sycamore shape
dave-poole@ilsham.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> Chas wrote:
> > A sycamore is a large tree. You must have a half acre at least to
> >even plant one (in my opinion!). I like them as massive single trunk trees.
> >They get a trunk that can be several feet in diameter. It doesn't seem to
> >me that a multi-trunked one is practical. Are you sure you have the right
> >tree for your purpose?
> > It is my opinion that you must care what a tree will look like in
> >fifty or a hundred years even if you don't plan to be here!! I've seem
> >redwoods planted within ten feet of a building
>
Hi
This is as true NZ as anywhere else and is exacerbated, in my opinion by
a nasty habit of nurserymen, who usually put on their labels without any
qualification the expected height after the first ten years, which
naturally leads to the erronious conclusion by John and Jane public that
this is the final height. Iam sure is one of the factors in poor choice
and foolish siting of trees in many gardens. Another is the undoubted
difficulty that many people have in realizing their nice little tree is
actually going to GROW. Two examples of this :- A lady (against the
advice of the garden centre assistant,I may say) insisting on purchasing
a full-sized Japanese Cedar for her rockery. When it was pointed out it
would soon outgrow the site her answer was she could easily keep it
pruned!!
The other case I came across was a young full-sized Copper beech tree
(Fagus) planted beneath a quite ordinary window. I suggested it would be
much more appropriately sited in the middle of their reasonably large
lawn, only to be informed the kids wanted the space kept clear for
cricket games, ah me!!! One really DOES wonder what impelled them to
chose it in the first place as suitable for a foundation planting,
perhaps it was the colour.
The sad result of most of this thoughtlessness is what a leading tree
surgeon here calls
Arbor decapitata, but many poor trees are subjected to much worse
treatment than mere decapitation and end their life eaking out a
miserable existence with the few remaining, much-hacked branches. Why
these poor wrecks are allowed survive in many properties is beyond my
comprehension Most of them are so hideous it is impossible to understand
how the householder continues to tolerate them and doesn't just put them
out of their misery with a chainsaw.
I do get the impression a number of Kiwis are actually afraid of trees -
perhaps a hangover from a pioneer past battling with forest. As soon as
a tree,even a well-sited one, gets any reasonable height at all they
want to "knock it back". I have been able to save more than one fine
tree from this awful fate by reasoning with the owner and pointing out
is was doing no harm to anybody or anything, and if appropriate
suggesting the possibility of judicious professional thinning to make it
a bit less bulky..
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata,
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
