SYCAMORE TREES

Sycamore trees are really irritating. They are very thin and boring, and they sprout from their boles almost like shrubs. They are also very fast-growing, so they quickly take over a wood if you are not careful.

The reason I am thinking about them is that I am heavily engaged in the 2012 Project, pruning the apple trees down in the orchard. The orchard abuts the wood, so one of my tasks is to cut back the wood a bit, so that the fruit trees on its edge have room to breathe. That means cutting down lots of sycamore trees that are springing up all around my beloved apple trees, and causing them to grow at awkward angles.

Fortunately, thin, fast-growing sycamore trees are easy to chop down, and can be felled with a few strokes of a hand-held saw. In ancient times, the rule for a village wood was that you were allowed to chop down a tree if it was as thick as a man's arm. Between you and me, I have been ignoring that rule rather a lot this weekend.

Walter Blotscher