Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Sycamore seedlings
If you cultivate your garden and are unlucky enough to have a sycamore tree nearby, this is the time of year when you find out what happens to all those twizzly little seeds that floated down in the autumn.
Every square foot of my garden is infested with the things. This doesn't matter much in the grass because they just get mown off in due course but any other patch where I want to plant something will look like this:
Every one of the twenty or so seedlings shown here will have to be uprooted. Over the whole garden there are literally thousands of these every year. Miss one for a few years and pulling it up becomes much more difficult.
Tags for Forum Posts: gardening
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alison on
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A root from a sycamore tree on network rail land behind next door's garden, caused severe subsidence in the back of my house. Get rid of them, they are a menace! It was covered by building insurance but was not a pleasant time, seeing my house split open, and then living with the mess of building works for months.
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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
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Thanks for adding this really important point. In my case the trees are not close enough to be a risk to foundations. However, I often see self-seeded trees growing in the front gardens of ladder houses. It would probably be a kindness to explain to the owners the danger of allowing them to grow so close to their property. Tiny seedlings will be the least of their problems.
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Permalink Reply by Alyson on
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Yes, I see this too, if only people had known what it was and tweaked out the tiny seeding at this stage. This time of year I often pull them up from where walls join the pavement and other random places.
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Permalink Reply by Rosamund Tomlins on
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Hi Alison, ooh that sounds ghastly! May I ask exactly how far from your house was the centre of the tree, if you know or even roughly?
I have a potentially similar problem in a neighbouring garden.
Many thanks.
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I'm finding this is the WORST so far of each of the 5 years I've been in my current house, but this & last are the years I've paid the most attention. Does it go like that? Some years only a few seedlings appearing? I've pulled up about 500 so far in the flower beds. The problem as you say, Dick, is after this 2 leaf stage, as even the tiniest toothed leaf appearing spells a much stronger root!
Similar to you, I have a massive ancient sycamore just over my fence & the neighbouring garden wall, right up against that wall, having been split into 2 in the great storm of October 1987, that I had to pay the entire price to trim the parts draping over my garden in 2017, as the then neighbour refused to do anything herself, admitted she'd NEVER done anything to curb the tree's growth in the many years she'd lived there certainly before 1987 (& I'd found out that I didn't need hers or the council's permissions anyway), & indeed on the day tried to stop my work being done at all, claiming we hadn't discussed it "properly"! (Er... yes, she'd had telephone & email confirmation of what we'd discussed in friendly manner in her garden as to my legal rights, & the tree surgeon had also respectfully written to her, + us all advising that she should have more cut from her side at little extra cost as sycamores are ultimately a nuisance, & she hadn't disputed or called the council services to try to stop it). It turned out that she'd objected to our houses & flats being built there anyway & idealistically wanted an artists' quarter of low rise studios set up instead. Hmmm, as if that was ever going to happen in the housing shortage. She moved away a year or so later.
New neighbours seemed to want to reduce it, maybe remove it entirely, last year but have yet to do so. I'm wondering if I can exert some light pressure.
The gardens back onto the long side of the L shaped garden of my end terrace house, & there's another sycamore a couple of doors down that mainly affect the garden of the house opposite mine, although there's likely some seeds blowing into my garden. The tree surgeon had recommended that be cut too but it seems Haringey hasn't given permission, & it's in a housing association's care home garden where the staff have no authority over the premises & the organisation couldn't care less. Like the one near me, it's just over their fence & wall to that garden. Those gardens are part of a Conservation Area, but our estate isn't.
Any ideas as to any council or other nature preserving bodies' policies that need to be clarified or indeed brought to bear? Many thanks.
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I have never had to enquire too deeply into these questions because the only trees growing too close to my foundations were either on my own land or on uninhabited land belonging to a distant company. In the latter cases, I would simply do it myself or employ a tree surgeon.
However, from a friend's experiences elsewhere in Haringey, I gathered that where the tree is in the street (and therefore the council's responsibility), the council can be liable for damage to your house. I heard that their liability does not begin until they are informed (by registered post) that you suspect one of their trees. This is not a straight forward matter because of the possible need to involve your insurance company or expert opinion.
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Ah, that's very useful, thanks Dick.
As it's a conservation area over the wall from us, Haringey would get involved with the decision on all trees cutting down completely, even though they're in private gardens there. I'm sure you're right about my insurance co. being involved if at sometime in the future the tree's roots started to reveal a problem, as the offending tree is closer to my house than the house whose garden its in, but as it was a new-build in 2015, the building regs. would have looked after me & my foundations for some considerable time, because the long side of my garden could have contained a whole other profitable house, but doesn't.
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