Ep147: Is the sycamore tree worthless to have on the homestead?
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- The sycamore tree is considered to be one of the oldest species of tree. it is one of the few trees even mentioned in the Bible. Despite being an ancient tree, does the sycamore have any practical value on the homestead? On our property, sycamore trees pop up like mushrooms after a spring rain. To say we have a few would be an understatement. In this video, I talk about the pros and cons of having sycamore trees on your homestead.
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I messed up and published today's video early! We will be back on our 4:30 schedule on Friday's video!
How old is that thin tree? Mine I found is estimated to be 150 years old since the don’t apparently produce seed pods until 125?
Also called buttonwood
The hollow nature of mature Sycamore trees is highly beneficial to many of our native birds like owls that love to nest in them.
Not to mention bees!
Bees like holes too!
Montezuma castle in Arizona has sycamore trees used as beams in the caves. They were built centuries ago and are still standing today. I would say yes. Definitely worth having.
Different climate and scenarios this is a old man on the east coast set in old ways in other words he was tought by older generations and thinks their way is best but in all reality the more tree cover the better as long as you have a nice healthy wooded srea
We leave the sycamore trees on our creek bank to stablize the bank. It's also the only tree that I'm allergic to. Tree pollen or saw dust causes dry heaves and coughing.
The oil and gas use the wood for temporary platforms.
Hey man, sycamore have tremendous value depending on your geography. Where I live Morel mushroom almost exclusively grow in relationship with them.
There's so many medicinal benefits trees etc have that are unknown to man as of yet. The Yew tree bark in the Pacific northwest is used to treat cancer
Hello,
Thank you for this video on sycamore trees, I found it quite educational. However one thing I found out about sycamores prior to finding this video is that theres medicinal value to sycamore tree.
Tea made from the inner bark helps with colds, coughs, tuberculosis, its even a blood purifier. So there is one item you can add to your pros list.
Thanks again.
We recently purchased an older home just south of Richmond VA. Has one of the biggest, stately American Sycamore trees I have ever seen. The wood is gaining a lot of interest as a tone-wood for guitar tops. I hate big trees close to my house and immediately had two large red oaks looming over the house cut down. One was 4’ in diameter and was 6’ off the back corner of the house. The Sycamore is a good 60’ from our house in the back yard and I’ve left it for now. It drops a lot of debris in the back yard, but man is it beautiful.
Yep. Once you have a sycamore tree in your garden you have a full time job stopping it from becoming a forest.
I'm surprised that one stood alone for so long.
Favorite of bald eagles for nesting!
Pro - it’s a very American tree. It’s mentioned in many a Mark Twain story
Pro - they are distinctively beautiful when they get large
We have them here in Scotland. They're a PITA, but I do have a pile of rounds outside and have to figure out a way to split them for the stove. I've small and weak ... I pull hundreds, if not thousands of "seedlings" out of the soil every single year and despair of the ones growing over the fence in our neighbour's garden - far nearer our house than theirs. I think a "word" will have to be had regarding the sycamore and the conifers! Perhaps he can get his "man" to cut them back far harder than previously.
Also they drink a lot of water so if you have some swampy land they can help dry it up
You can live in a sycamore - if you let them grow long enough. This is documented in Appalachia.
I watched this because we have HUGE sycamores here in Highland county, Ohio and on our farm.
I'm in New Vienna on the border. Howdy neighbor!
I have made so many things with Sycamore. Netting Shuttles, Whistles, chairs, tables, Mallets, utensils(food safe), Walking Staffs, Wood Carvings, Fire making sets, picture frames. The most readily available and versatile wood of all deciduous trees. It does require treatment from deterioration and bug rot, but overall my favorite wood to work with.
You could also add the tree can soak up a wet spot so you are able to mow it. The same is true for Willow trees.
Yes, that is a very good point. They can definitely suck up the water.
I am a woodworker and I really like sycamore. If it is quarter sawn it has a beautifull ray display. It is a member of the maple family.
The ray fleck is amazing. It can be more pronounced than white oak.
I'm a dendrologist, been one for 20+ years and get the question all the time when showed the leaf "What kind of maple is this?"
It's actually not a maple, the American Sycamore that he is talking about is in the Plane family or PlatanaceaePlatanus Occidentalis. Maples are Aceraceae.
All maples have opposite apposing leaves, American Sycamore has alternate. Also I'd you look how the leaf is attached to the tree it is distinctly different.
Where the confusion comes in is the common name. The American Sycamore and the Sycmore, as referred to in the United Kingdom are two separate trees. The one in the UK is a type of maple (Acer Pseudoplatanus)
I read that at first as "I am a woodpecker" lol but yes I agree, I have made some cool stuff from the dropped branches of one. We had 4 mature giants, just took down one 3 days ago that had started to lean over the house and was about 80+ ft tall, the tree cutter who has been working in the Gainesville area for 35 years said it was the 2nd largest tree he he had ever felled. The trunk was like a baby sequoia and feeding off our drain field. So sad to see it go but every storm was hoping it wouldn't drop a branch and kill us. Turned out it was rotting from the top down, had no idea til it was felled. Trying to decide what to do now with the massive trunk.
Appreciate the tree before a disease or bug eliminates them like the ash tree. The tree has great value for wild life if you let it mature to a great size. Settlers used the hollow trunks as barns.
While listening to a lecture on Street Trees at UC Davis of California. The Representative would say "They are "Sick-a-More" than any others ! I never forgot that Quote.
The continuously shedding bark is good for the soil around them.
They make great poles for limb lines. Light weight push poles. Good for pole beans in the garden.
I also use them as a retaining wall along the Kentucky river. We have a 25foot high bank very steep to the water. Every year our steps wash away. About 5 years ago i started a row of cuttings in a line diagonal about 20 degrees from water to top of bank.. The roots hold the bank. The 4" trunks hold 1x6s that hold the sand and after a few floods i now have a very nice slope that is easy to walk down. Every year i take a few cuttings to fill in dead or missing areas while fishing. Another year or 2 and some work ill have it wide enough to drive a 4wheeler down to pull out my jonboat.
Im even thinking about planting them along our boundary to have permanent fence post.
I may be wrong but I’m my head it would be an awesome treehouse for the kids. If it doesn’t want to die. You build it between two trees it will last forever
I read that early settlers used to keep livestock in the hollows of massive sycamores, like at night to protect from bears cougars and wolves
The European Sycamore is in the Maple family, Acer pseudoplatanus, and is also known as Sycamore Maple. The American Sycamore is Platanus occidentalis and most large cities plant them along their streets because they're pollution tolerant and wind resistant.
Some of the limbs can make a neat looking walking stick or canes and I always had good luck using it as kindling.
i bet the sycamore puts a lot of water into the air and gives all the surroundings more water ie rain due to the big leaves, spots you find them and water content .
Our pigs devoured sycamore saplings. Turn your problem into a solution! :)
Great idea
Im no fan of Sycamore eather but the seed balls can have a used. You can use KNF practices and grow out mycelium on them. You can use the mycelium balls in you're veg. Garden to improve soil and a treat for pastured pig's
I’ve got a couple pros (from my perspective) for you: it grows well in the New Mexican desert. We are miles from the Rio Grand too. Also, it is a healthy tree, thank goodness. The cottonwoods and other trees around here are very susceptible to a fungal infection that slowly kills the tree, not the sycamores.
I think sycamores could survive a nuclear blast!
I live in south California and this tree seems to be drought tolerant. It also makes a great shade tree which always in need in overly
So.Cal
Great tree
Nice video. You’re very personable. 👍🏻 Several of the horse farms I’m on in the central Kentucky area have their roads lined with sycamore trees. They are pretty!
Good job!
Harvested one with leaves, made good compost after processing it with the woodchipper. I would not be surprised that it can be used for animal bedding when harvested and chipped during winter.
I loved sycamore trees when I ran a business cleaning gutters. 4 cleaning service calls a year was not uncommon.
And people say money doesn't grow on trees!
Red Tool House - Homestead it may not grow on them but if you get the right idea it can turn into money when it falls.
Excellent video. I enjoy your personal experience and how you relate a given topic to yourself, family and property.
We have several along our creek bottom. I like they way they look, especially in the winter.
They are a very pretty tree.
40 years ago work in a sawmill , one summer for 4-5 months we sawed 10-12K a day some times 6 days a week.
Order was for 8/4 n 12/4 , with 5/4 for the boards, went to a furniture company. Some shipped green but kiln dryed most of it.
Really was nice lumber no knot much, yes some hollow ones mostly clear lumber, beings I ran the edger a lot passed thru my hands that summer. Ty Troy
That is a lot of sycamore lumber. That 12/4 most have been fun moving around green!
Mighty Sycamore is a wonderful and vigorous tree. It provides great shade in Southern California. Where trees are hard to grow and thrive this seems to excel. It’s also drought resistant. Squirrels and Beaver can eat the edible fruit of the Sycamore
They make great post for building pole barns.
If you want to take another benefit of Sycamore get some honey bee hives. Sycamores are great nectar and pollen resources for honey bees.
I make canes and staffs. It's also a medicine tree. Sycamore is in the bible. Some african nations consider it the tree of life. Egyptian folklore talks of the sycamore. Viking culture. Historically speaking? George Washington described one of the largest in America during his era. Some people lived in the hollows of sycamore. My tree is named big Moe. Biggest tree I've ever seen.
Robo
If you think these trees are bad on the farm it's worse in town where you need to rack your yard you have 2,or 3 months of racking leaves and bark because the bark peals off late summer through fall once the tree is 5 years old
Thank you, I'm in WV and learning about trees on my property. Saw a tree with balls on it and it led me to you lol
I'm sitting here with my busted ankle just enjoying your channel. You do a good and honest job, I'm going to share your channel with my audience...keep up the great work.
I was just checking your channel out. We should do a collab at some point. Sorry about your leg. That had to hurt like crazy! Glad you're on the mend.
Red Tool House - Homestead It's been a long summer but hopefully I'll be cleared to walk about mid August. We will definitely have to figure something out.
In the rural (farm/ranch) environment, sycamores can be a definite headache. But in the urban setting, they can be very beneficial when planted in the right location. No disagreement with you FOR YOUR LOCATION. I have a sycamore on my front lawn, well away from the sidewalk, well away from the sewer line. It gives much needed shade during the heat of summer. Jon
They make great shade, for certain!
@Railfan I have one in my backyard about 20 ft from the house. I bought the house 5Yrs ago and I am sick and tired of this tree due to seed balls, huge leaves to rake during fall and the fallen bark. Its about 4-5ft in diameter.
I wonder what bad consequences i can face by cutting it off.
I suddenly have the urge to cut it off, I wonder if you still have yours?
I just jerked one of these by the roots out of the ditch near my house. You talk about a root system! I had to cut the root with a buzz saw and when I planted it in the back yard, it didn't even wilt!
My great grandfather put a sycamore post in the ground to stack hay around it. The thing sprouted! Here we are 120 years later and its still alive and a giant.
@@tmo4330 locusts, sycamores, and hybrid poplars, and maybe to a lesser extent, empress trees, are like invincible.
I live in Quebec, Canada and just discovered a sycamore on my property. A few years ago I culled about 10 of these trees because I thought they were maples and more grew back. I just left them. The leaves have the black spot on them which I thought was disease. I love the one growing beside a fence all by itself, about 60 feet high, but no shedding bark. Maybe some sort of hybrid. Now November and still holding on to about half of its leaves, all my real maples have shed leaves, even my oaks. I love the sycamore.
They can live 800 plus yrs and grow 47feet in diameter
Have just harvested all chippable saplings to make a back to eden garden. Coppice them and use the poles.
Sycamore gives you air to breath and you seem to require a lot of air. Symbiotic relationship
Sycamores are immortalized in songs "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "Moonlight in Vermont."
In the Bible as well
The morning is coming.... the arborist will be here in 6 or 7 hours to take out the 100 year old, 46 inch diameter leaf manufacturing factory that calls itself a sycamore tree. I hope the luck of the draw gives me some nice wood for cabinet doors and other non-structural uses. but the most important issue is getting my plumbing and foundation problems solved.
Sycamore is a beautiful wood if you can keep it stable. Gets very light once it dries. Good luck with that monster!!
Sycamore and sweet gum are similarly foul to me🤣. Thanks for another awesome video.
ever tried digging and bundling saplings for sale, for shade and erosion control?
Beautiful tree 🌳🌳🌳
Great talk on sycamores
I have at least one on my 16 acre farm. It stands grand and proud while showing off its smooth white under-bark. It is away from the house and causes me no issue. I will look for saplings this spring. I am a fiber artist (using ,mostly wool, alpaca, mohair, Angora from my animals). The bark can be used for natural dyes.
RUclips: "Searching for information regarding quantum processing, are we? Okay, then. But first, watch this guy talk about his love/hate relationship with a tree for 20 minutes."
I literally watched the entire video. I'm a daredevil like that.
Careful. Don't fall into the youtube black hole.
So around here (urban area) we don't have a lot of Sycamores. We *do* have hundreds of London Plane trees though, which are half Sycamore. Like them, they shed bark, perhaps even more copiously. I do find that bark to be a good mulch, and I gather up as much of the bark as I can in the summer, when they shed it the most. And since this is the city, Squirrels and various birds, especially Robins, are a problem. If you're managing your garden right, it'll have lots of worms, which Squirrels and Robins will destroy said garden to get to. The only way to stop it without installing netting is to put down mulch in the form of lots of nurse logs, woody debris big enough that the Robins can't move it. A few nice thick sheet sized Sycamore sheddings tend to do quite nicely for that. So they do have some value as an input for gardens, if you don't mind doing the manual labor of gathering it.
We have a sycamore tree in our front yard. It is the oldest in our county. It’s beautiful & offers wonderful shade in the summer & protection from the weather in winter. It’s a magnificent tree & is mentioned in the Bible. We love our tree. It’s so big that you can’t see our house from google earth.
But yes, they are definitely messy with their bark.
My son works in the tree cutting business. It’s his least favorite of any tree to work on.
1st
you can see any home, shad, car from google earth even my hydro poles and my shipping container
drdianneLc How does he like cleaning up ash trees? Those trees make a huge mess.
I would think it would be a nightmare for arborists!
Arnold Romppai I beg to differ with you. The tree completely covers our home.
Love2boat92 I don’t know. I’ll have to ask him.
easiest way to identify a sycamore tree..from flat on your back. Try to climb it and if you don't slip down the bark you will fall from limbs breaking under you.
ha! no doubt
Those limbs, that fall during wind storms, are like grown trees, falling from the sky.
700 years from now someone could live in one of them!
Sycamore Maple makes great syrup. It is sweeter than Black Maple.
You sure got some purty land there. I hope to find some one day.
However, I build rifles. Black powder ones. Sycamore Maple produces some of the pertiest stocks. Excellent grain, works well, fairly hard. Stains well. If you ever want to see, when you cut one down, wax the end. Let sit for several years. This keeps the grain from cracking through. All the minerals it takes in, Aqua Fortis stains it very well. It is not Rock Maple, but it acts like it. Good luck.
It's a good shade for summer.
I did this by accident. I found some down sycamore trees on the ex's property and she asked me nice to please get rid of them as they drag on her clothes going out to the mailbox. Okay, since you were nice about it and I owe you big time not able to see the kids like I wanted. I went in her car garage and sure enough was a little chain saw and it was sharp so I didn't have many excuses... I went out to the end of the drive and where they laid was water running down the drive. I looked and sure enough hollow like you said. So I borrow her naibor guy's backhoe and dug the ditch a bit deeper and then cut that hollow sycamore to the length I needed. I scootched it in the ditch and covered it up with that carolina clay around it and waited a few... smoked a cigarette and waited some more hoping and then bingo water going through the culvert! A first for me but most of all I got the big piece gone. And her drive dried up. She drives one of those cars that weigh about a little more than the sack of groceries that she went after. I shoved the limbs in the back of my pickup I rented and when I turned it back the limbs were still in it. I had to pay ten dollars extra for cleaning and that was good with me cause I had a plane to catch home to alaska
Thank you for the video
I cut one for firewood last year and split it by hand. It wasnt as bad as trying to split a pin oak the same way and it does dry oyt really fast once split. If you need to get a wood stove going in a hurry it is hard to beat once its dry
It seems to rot faster here then dry out. Although, I haven't kept it under cover.
Red Tool House - Homestead I live in Southwest Virginia and stacked it in a Swedish style round pile with just a piece of plywood over the top and it was dry in just few months. I was surprised by how quick it dried
A guy I work with cuts them for firewood and burns them green in his outdoor boiler and says they are awesome. I just bought a boiler and may give it a try, that’s a bunch of firewood.
They are my favorite tree honestly but never owned a property with one in but it is first think I am planting on the next homestead
You taught more then the research I have done over the years
Your channel is fantastic keep up the good work! Been binge watching for over hour haha
Sheaffer Select Coins
pretty straight... maybe good fence post if rot resistant.
One thing I like about you channel is you identifying different species of plants and trees and giving the pros and cons. That is some great information.
Thanks. I think most plants have some benefits even if they are considered invasive.
We live in Doddridge WV and use them for firewood. You have to cut them down and split them in one to two days. Any longer and they be hard to split,and cut. They dry fast and burn (ok) it’s not oak but works good enough.imo
I'm considering planting them deliberately on some land I own with a high water table to try and dry it out a bit. Draining a "wetland" is illegal in most places, but planting a sparse sycamore forest isn't. It's a slow go, but it's a legal workaround that can turn land that won't pass a perc test into land that will.
They would be effective for that.
My grandpa did this on his land and had great success, they grow really quick too near water too
We did green ash in areas that our loblolly pine drowned out. The grew extremely fast at first. Sold them as hardwood pulpwood. Will be planting sycamore in the future.
Great idea, put in tulip poplar, willow, make a nice varied forest
Incredibly fun bashing each other with the itchy ball seeds
I love my sycamore 🌲.
So do I... The one I got is HUGE
They are beautiful trees.
I've got a few thousand you can have if you wanna cut em down at my farm
I love sycamore trees with all their leaves waving and glistening besidesvthe shade it gives. My parents planted two sycamores in 1980 when i waa 16 so we all ten on the family loved andbwatch them grow. But now we're very upset that our trees were mot pruned but major limbs were cut close to the tree. He did not follow instruction. He said it regrow in three months and my neighbor said it regrows under the cut off part in three months. Im praying it'll grow fast and tske shape again.
"It's a devil weed". I agree with all the cons he mentioned. The only benefit is the beautiful appearance on inaccessible steep stream banks.
To add a pro, the timing and quantity of nectar makes it excellent bee forage.
I wondered about that. Does it produce good honey?
I'll have to defer to people more expert on that, but whatever
special flavor would be blended into the general spring flush.
It should be reasonably good if the syrup is worth making from
the sap.
I'll have to defer to people more expert on that, but whatever
special flavor would be blended into the general spring flush.
It should be reasonably good if the syrup is worth making from
the sap.
I have one on my backyard I love the tree I live in the high desert of California this tree saves me every summer the trunk of the tree is about 3 and 1/2 to 4 ft wide
You forgot to mention how incredibly annoying the powdery stuff from the fallen bark gets in your nose and eyes if you have to mow or trim the ground around the tree.
Great for moral mushrooms
Their water absorbing capability can be put to used to prevent flooding in low lying and flood prone areas
Sycamore is a beautiful wood. Needs to be cut in fall/winter when sap is down.
You had me slightly confused with your American Sycamore - not the same as our European Sycamore which has winged fruits as opposed to the seed balls. I believe the American Sycamore is what we would describe as a Plane tree.
Correct. I may have to start listing genus species names for clarification
Plane ornerys another name fer it
European Sycamore is what we call a Maple lol.
Good discussion RTH, I feel the same way as you. I own 13 acres in N. Panhandle of W.V. There are hundreds of these Critters for about a half mile behind my barn. There is a little stream of water that runs out of a holler that is normally dry this time of year. These rascals has a pretty speedy growth too. I was clearing some Multifloring rose bushes about 15 years ago and I saved one sycamore sprouts and today 15 yrs later its 75 feet tall and 12 to 18inches in diameter. Urrggh.
I think they grow two feet overnight!
If you keep bees they have good flowers for bees to pollinate. Look it up.
sycamore trees are commonly grown as urban landscaping trees in warm temperate areas from USDA zone 7-10
Great points (pros and cons, and more possible pros at the end). Thanks. And will love to hear if you end up tapping them and may find you like the syrup. :-) never considered that.
We are definitely going to have to try that this winter.
The one tree I would wonder about is cottonwood. It grows super fast, throws seed everywhere. It breaks easy and sucks for a timber tree. plus its one of the few trees I know of that's hardly worth messing with for fire wood.
the bark the falls off the tree would be good material to start a fire.
pro - besides it's shadow, you can use the wood to start a fire by friction
Don't pussyfoot around, tell us how you really feel about sycamore. lol I grew up on a farm and we used sycamore for firewood. As you mentioned it is hard to split with an axe but I did split a lot of it. That was over 50 years ago though. I thought it actually made decent (not as good as the white oak, red oak or hickory we had as well) but it was decent. Dad had a 10 acre woods and never cut a live tree out of it so the sycamore we burned were all mature.
Man it is so funny seeing you hate on a tree for being so successful-it is fulfilling an ecological niche in your environment of being early successional. It just does what it was created to do! Down here in the piedmont (similar elevation, ~830 ft) we have the tulip poplar that does this exact thing. For me, though I would love to hate it (for the EXACT same reasons you showed) I don’t simply because I know it is doing what it is supposed to do. Plus, I know when I start using prescribed fire, we will lose the less desirable trees like tulip poplars and sweetgums and Beech trees and loblolly’s and turn back to the oak-hickory-shortleaf pine forest it is supposed to be.
How about building tool sheds, bird houses & dog houses. It would appear that this would work, what do you think Troy is there any restrictions in that direction ?
You've got a subscription for me 👍 had me at Homestead lol. I think a pro is the taproot.
I second the splitting it by hand. Like trying to split a black of rubber.
I have no sycamore on my land and am grateful for it. It’s not a very useful tree. But it’s beauty is only surpassed by the live oak which most of us can’t grow so I will forgive you guys for your defense of this useless tree.
Some people say goats like the leaves. Maybe a few goats will keep the saplings down.
Copicing is very good for firewood production.
They make AMAZING tree hay and the fall leaves feed our Rabbits all Winter long. 20-25% of their winter ration is Sycamore.
Keep them small - we pollard above deer browse an let 2 year's growth go. Harvest the third year for tree hay.
Keeping them small keeps the fluff from blowing around everywhere from 50 feet up ... and hardly any seed balls form only allowing 2 to 3 year's growth.
Good Video.
Thanks.
You could plant walnut trees and let the natural herbicide take care of the problem.
It stops things from sprouting.. not so much from growing if already there..
Yes they grow everywhere you can't kill it. I ripped up the root ball on one and still every year the root system? produces several. The saplings are like a plague.
I want to cut mine from my backyard. Am I going to start seeing saplings everywhere if i do?
Do you regret ripping yours off?
I am also considering cutting only enough to put a tree house but also wonder what will happen if it will get bugs? 🤔
I have so many questions.
Yes !!
It's great shade! That's about it.
Sycamore was tapped for syrup very similar to maple surprise surprise
As kids we called them gum ball trees. Too many other valuable trees and too many other ways to deal with water issues than to intentional plant this tree. Sycamore is not in the maple family, it is in the kudzu family. Great video.