Sycamore Sapling Trees

At a Glance

• Use: Large specimen tree, screening, coastal windbreak
• Not suitable for hedging
• Height: Up to 35m
• Growth: Fast. Broad, rounded crown
• Soil: Any except totally waterlogged
• Light: Full sun to partial shade
• Type: Large deciduous tree
• Species: Acer pseudoplatanus
• RHS Plants for Pollinators
• Bareroot Delivery Only: Nov-March

Appearance, Growth & Uses

Sycamore is a large, fast-growing deciduous tree that develops into an impressive specimen with a broad, rounded crown.
This vigorous tree reaches up to 35 metres, rivalling oak in size and stature.

The large, green palmate leaves provide dense summer shade, and turn mellow orange-yellow-brown in autumn.
The bark is smooth and grey when young, developing insect friendly plates and fissures with age.

Sycamore's winged helicopter seeds are fun for the kids to play with, but are a bit of a weed.

It's usually a tree for large gardens and windbreaks, including on the coast: there are few other large trees that tolerate salt, harsh winds, and poor soil so well.

But it also coppices and pollards well, in which case it's manageable for most size gardens.

• Buy large Sycamore trees for instant impact.
• Browse other hedging and sapling trees, other coastal plants, or our full range of trees delivered in large sizes.

Growing Conditions

• Soil: Any soil except totally waterlogged
• Light: Full sun to partial shade
• Moisture: Tolerates drought and damp conditions
• Avoid: Only deep shade and permanently waterlogged sites
• Maintenance: Minimal once established
• Hardiness: Extremely hardy, excellent wind and salt resistance

Sycamore thrives in practically any conditions, tolerating poor soils, coastal exposure, pollution, and extreme wind.

Garden Design Ideas

Mature sycamores are impressive parkland trees, and good for wildlife gardens, but overall it's not an exceptionally beautiful tree.

However, it is well suited to being coppiced, pollarded, or pleached, and makes a good subject for the kind of tree sculptures one more commonly sees made from willow.

Most people use Sycamore as a large background tree for quick privacy and shelter.

History & Trivia

Acer pseudoplatanus is native across Europe and Western Asia, introduced to Britain in the late medieval period.
The earliest record of it being cultivated here is from John Gerard's The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes in 1597

Sycamore is a maple, and is called Sycamore Maple in America to distinguish it from the American Sycamore, Platanus occidentalis, which we call an American Plane tree in Britain.
Pseudoplatanus, means "False Platanus", as in the London Plane; in Scotland, Sycamores are commonly called Planes.

Like the Plane, the Sycamore was one of the few trees that continued to thrive in our polluted, industrial revolution era cities when so many other species gave up and died in the smog.

Sycamore timber is valued for furniture, flooring, and musical instruments, particularly violin tonewood due to its excellent acoustic properties.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs' tree in Dorset is probably the most famous Sycamore in the UK, calculated to be about 320 years old in 2019.

There is a passage through Hadrian's Wall called Sycamore Gap with an old tree marking it, which appears in several paintings and postcards.
That tree, known as the Robin Hood Tree despite being over 150 miles away from Sherwood Forest, was coppiced by enthusiastic volunteers in 2023, who were sentenced to over 4 years in prison for their efforts.

The timber is excellent, durable and easy to carve, and makes good firewood and charcoal. In the past, it was probably the most common wood for making treen, which are any small wooden utensils, but these days the word treen usually applies to antique, decorative items.

Sycamore was the wood of choice for Scottish Mauchline Ware, hugely popular wooden souvenirs made in the eponymous town in Ayrshire.