sycamore primary care :: Article CreatorCollecting, Preparing, And Planting Sycamore Seeds
Updated September 5, 2024
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The American sycamore tree flowers in spring and completes seed maturity in fall. Ending the maturation process as early as the first of September and continuing through November, sycamore seeds then ripen and are ready for collection and preparation for planting. The head is persistent and will delay seed drop out of the fruiting "ball" until January through April.
The best time to collect the fruiting balls or heads, usually directly off the tree, is just before they begin to break up and the hairy-tufted seeds start falling. It's easier to pick the fruiting heads after they turn brown but also after leaf fall. Because these seed heads are persistent on limbs, collections can be made into the next spring and usually make sycamore the last fall-maturing species collected in the Eastern forest. The California sycamore matures much earlier, so you should collect its seeds during fall.
Collecting Sycamore Seed for Planting NatureServe / Flickr / CC BY 2.0 Picking fruit heads by hand is the most common collection method. At the northern and western limits of the sycamore range, intact heads can sometimes be found and collected off the ground late in the season. After collecting these fruiting bodies, spread the heads in single layers and dry them in well-ventilated trays until they can be broken apart. These heads can look dry on collection but layering and venting are essential, especially with fruit heads collected early in the season. Early ripening seeds can have a moisture content as high as 70%. You should extract the seeds from each head by crushing the dried fruit balls and removing the dust and fine hairs attached to the individual achenes. It's easy to do small batches by hand-rubbing the balls through hardware cloth (2 to 4 wires/cm). When doing larger batches, wear dust masks because the fine hairs dislodged during extraction and cleaning are a respiratory danger. Preparing and Storing Sycamore Seed for Planting Carmen García / EyeEm / Getty Images Seeds of all sycamore species do fine stored for long periods under cold, dry conditions. Tests with sycamore seeds have shown that they're suitable to store for up to five years at moisture contents of 5 to 10% and stored at temperatures of 32 to 45 °F. American sycamore and naturalized London plane trees have no dormancy requirements and pre-germination treatments usually aren't required for adequate germination. Germination rates of California sycamores increase from moist stratification storage for 60 to 90 days at 40 F in sand, peat, or sandy loam. To maintain low seed moisture under moist storage conditions, you must store the dried seeds in moisture-proof containers, such as polyethylene bags. You can easily test the germination rate on wet paper or sand, or in shallow dishes of water at a temperature of around 80 F over 14 days. Planting Sycamore Seed JohnatAPW / Getty Images Sycamores are naturally sown in the spring and you should mimic those conditions. Place seeds in soil no deeper than 1/8 inch with each seed about six to eight inches apart for proper spacing. You can use small, shallow starter trays with potting soil to start the new trees, and you must maintain adequate soil moisture and place trays under indirect light. Germination will take place over approximately 15 days and a four-inch seedling will develop in less than two months under optimal conditions. You must carefully remove these seedlings and transplant them from trays to small pots. Tree nurseries in the United States typically outplant these seedlings one year from germination as bare-root seedlings. Potted trees can go several years before re-potting or planting in the landscape.
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Sycamore Gap Tree Trunk Section Back Home A Year On
The Sycamore Gap tree was a much-loved subject for artists and photographers [REUTERS/Lee Smith]
One year after the famous Sycamore Gap tree was cut down a 7ft (2m) section of the trunk has returned home.
The piece is now the star-attraction in a new exhibition at The Sill visitor centre near Hexham, in Northumberland, which celebrates the life of the tree.
As part of the project, visitors will be asked to make pledges about how they can help protect the environment.
The National Trust has also launched an opportunity for people to request one of 49 Sycamore Gap saplings to be gifted to their communities around the UK, reflecting the 49ft (15m) height of the tree.
The tree, which was a much-loved subject for artists and photographers, was illegally felled exactly one year ago.
Two men have denied damaging the tree and are due to stand trial in December.
Nick Greenall, part of Cumbrian art collective Creative Communities who created the exhibition, said the aim was not just to "memorialise" the tree, but to "subvert it into positive action for nature".
He said the art collective wanted to turn the story of the sad demise of the tree into one of hope.
Nick Greenall says the aim of the exhibition is to encourage people to act [BBC]
He said: "We are going to get people to make pledges, how they think they can benefit the environment.
"So they could say, 'I'm going to plant 10 trees a year for the rest of my life'.
"We very much wanted to harness that interest and goodwill - it's very much an exhibition that's looking forward."
School involvement
Artist Charlie Whinney, who has a studio near Kendal in Cumbria, has created four wooden panels and the lengths of them, when added together, make up the 49ft (15m) height of the tree as it was.
Each of the panels represents a season and the piece of trunk sits in front of the autumn panel, as that was the time of year it was cut down.
The summer panel started off filled with a number of white paper sycamore-shaped leaves, which were painted by hundreds of school children during workshops earlier in the week, ahead of Saturday's opening.
People will be able to request one of 49 saplings, representing the tree's 49ft height [National Trust]
Mr Whinney said this was the panel he was most excited about completing.
"We've got 300 kids coming in, they're going to write an oath or a promise about what can grown-ups do better for the environment - I'm worried about what they're going to say."
The piece of trunk will become a permanent display at The Sill from the spring and the final design of how it will be shown will be developed from the ideas that are gathered throughout this exhibition.
To mark the first anniversary of the tree's felling, the National Trust says people can apply for one of the 49 Sycamore Gap saplings to grow into a tree in a space for their community.
Andrew Poad, general manager for the National Trust's Hadrian's Wall properties, said he hoped the project would help communities feel part of the tree's "wonderful legacy" and would help create "a new chapter in the life of this legendary tree".
The 49ft (15m) tree was illegally felled a year ago [PA Media]
He added: "The last 12 months have been a real rollercoaster of emotions, from the hopelessness and grief we felt when we discovered that the tree had been illegally felled, to experiencing the stories shared with us about just what the tree meant to so many."
As part of this Trees of Hope initiative, Henshaw Church of England Primary School in Hexham, which is closest to the Sycamore Gap, and all 15 UK national parks will receive a sapling.
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