It's Too Bad About the Sycamores

Oddly for someone who will probably live in cities for the rest of his life, I'm quite interested in landscaping and particularly the selection of trees. Michael Dirr has written an excellent book on the subject. Sadly, he doesn't recommend planting sycamores, which can be quite beautiful trees (this link might not work permanently, but right now it has some great images).

I understand his point (I don't have his book in front of me, so this is from memory, and I might be misremembering). Sycamores are vulnerable to a disease that makes their leaves look ragged. Their bark can be stunningly beautiful, but it can also be mediocre or worse. If the rough outer bark doesn't drop off, it can look horrible. It's a large tree, which makes it unsuitable for most locations, and its form can lack grace. I've seen specimens that are extremely ungainly.

And yet... and yet it's too bad, because when their bark looks nice it looks very nice indeed. Down the block from my apartment there are two sycamores, side by side, that are near perfection. If every sycamore could look like them, it would be a great tree to plant. It's a great tree for all seasons, because its bark is so lovely during the winter. It's a historically important tree: it is also known as a buttonwood, and the NYSE first met under a sycamore.

If I ever have enough land, I'll probably plant a few, but mostly I think it's too bad about the sycamores.