In my experience, sycamores are very easy to transplant. I have had pretty rough transplants of those at bad times and yeah they sprout the prettiest seedlings in the worst locations. Several years ago I gently pulled one 24" or so out of the ground that was growing at the edge of a driveway but the roots where under the pavement. I transplanted it bare root and it is now 20' tall. You'd never know they were easy to transplant by the root systems which seem kind of sparse to me. I've had containerized sycamores root right into the ground through the container in just one season. The first year they are slow growing but the second year they really take off.

Ideally, take as much of the roots as you can but they are forgiving. And once the leaves drop would be best but again, this is a forgiving plant.

Thanks!!

I'll try to wait until leaf drop, but they are still growing like gangbusters showing no signs of stopping even though the mature sycamores around here are already dropping their inner leaves. In my experience seedlings like this basically refuse to go dormant until a hard freeze (which here is sometimes not until December) knocks them off.

It seems the young trees don't get anthracnose like the bigger ones do, but are there easy to obtain treatments to PREVENT my little trees from getting that disfiguring condition? The anthracnose this year was HORRIBLE in my area but these seedling show no signs at all.

if anthracnose is endemic in your area.. why bother????

ken

I echo Ken's question.
If Anthracnose is real bad, you should consider planting one of the resistant hybrids (commonly referred to as London planetree).

I suppose you could try a fungicide if you wanted to prevent it but that would get impractical in a hurry.

I have transplanted sycamores in mid summer by rough transplant into containers and then from containers to the ground some days later. They all survived.

I dont remember ever losing a sycamore transplant. knock on wood.

ken has that wonderful knack of looking at the bigger picture beyond the technical question.

but are there easy to obtain treatments to PREVENT my little trees from getting that disfiguring condition?

They are very easy to obtain if you have enough money to shell out every year and your neighbors don't mind the stain from overspray.

Dan

your little tree.. will be 80 feet tall someday ....

and by the time its 15-20 feet tall.. you will be risking your health trying to save the tree .. or your checkbook

try transplanting a tree.. observe its reaction.. and perhaps.. eventual decline..

but i would surely not spend money on CHEMICALS to try to make it thrive ...

we have emerald ash borer in MI ... why in the world would i mess with ash ... so i simply ask you the same thing ...

ken

Actually, ken, the latest Urban Forestry is finding good results with injections in field trials in MI for EAB. Kinda makes you wonder why some cities just cut all their ash down, but that is not OT for this thread.

Dan

OK, I dug them and potted them - we may be relocating next spring, so if I wish to keep them I figured pots are best for now.

Question: I am presuming they're platanus, the leaves look like it, but the stems are MUCH shorter than on a mature tree, and the lower leaves are more beech-like than sycamore-like, but the newer (upper) leaves look identical to platanus leaves except shorter stems - is this typical? The stem of each tree also looks very Platanus-like.

Doesn't really sound typical. I've never seen beech leaves on a sycamore although sometimes leaves on young seedlings don't resemble the same shape as larger trees.
I'm puzzled at why you dug now only to place in a pot for many months. Sycamore don't like being in pots and you'll find that they will readily root into the ground through the drainage holes in the container.

Mainly because they were in an unacceptable location. I'm in a condo, so there really isn't anywhere they can live. The reason I want to save them is the good chance we'll be buying a single family home next spring. Sorry I didn't make that clear earlier.

Here's a pic:

{{gwi:437545}}

Oh ok. That makes perfect sense.
Definitely sycamores. American Sycamore.
That is normal for how they look. Once you get it in the ground it will start growing some lateral branches.

I would suggest moving them to some nursery containers rather than those pots. 10 gallon size.

On the one closer to the front of the picture, that one has two twiggy small laterals - should I leave those or clip them off?

I would snip them off.

I will, although I wouldn't be surprised if they just died and dropped off next year without re-leafing.

These trees will surprise you though.
Could you not find one with a straighter leader and one without a bruise?

Nope, those two were all that came up.

The one in the back has better form, though.

I was under the impression that although anthracnose in Sycamores can be ugly, and lead to premature leaf fall, that it is rarely fatal in American Sycamore. Isn't this true?

Yes but the mess is a pain in the butt. There are some other benefits to planting a resistant planetree. They have a better form in general, more appealing darker green foliage in many cases too.

gardingrandma, that is so interesting, because I think london planetrees are anything but graceful! At least the old ones in our neighborhood. They are gangly and just overall unappealing to me. There's a few that are growing in the cemetary up the street that are magnificent but in general I prefer sycamore.

Powdery mildew is a huge problem here for london planetrees and some sycamore.

That's why it's important to chose proven species and proven cultivars for the location where the trees are being planted.
Anything is better than a tree that routinely suffers from anthracnose.

The leaves on both are now drying out except the very top of each tree. The lower leaves have dried and somewhat yellowed...probably due to transplanting, however, the large tree across the street has dropped a lot of leaves the last few days as well.

The stems seem "normal" and still pliable, so I'll chalk it up to normal leaf drop accelerated by transplanting.

Hopefully they'll leaf out in spring as expected.

I love updates

You know, I just assumed they made it. Oh well :(

Man, as I was reading this for the first time I really got pumped up to see new pics of the what I thought would be 20' beauties! I hate that you lost them but now you have more room to plant something else ;^)

I do wonder why the winter killed them, though. I would think they should be perfectly hardy in your z7 MD. We have had a few large sycamores in our neighborhood leaf out weakly for a couple of years then not leaf out at all. Curious if it is something similar at play...

I think it was simply a matter of not getting enough of the roots. Sycamores are all over and native here.