This is my sycamore. One year out of a pot. I uncovered root flare and saw severe girdling and did some cuts. The more root I uncovered the more severe the girdling. See before and after pics. I’m afraid I did too much. What do you think?
by dandaman19
17 Comments
That’s not going to survive. Wayy too heavily pruned
[Here’s what I would have cut](https://imgur.com/a/sycamore-roots-ovUVG9L#fhcjVNS)
Were you a little overzealous? Maybe. Will it make it? Perhaps.
You way over did it and butchered it.
At this point you did what you did. We’ll see what happens. It will be good to know either way.
Arborist here. Root pruning will always cause stress for the tree, limiting water and nutrient flow, however, as the tree is rather young I believe it is reasonable to believe it will heal. The biggest concern when root pruning a tree is opening vectors for disease. That said, sycamore is not terribly susceptible to disease other than some leaf disease, but almost every sycamore (at least in my area, southeast PA) is going to get anthracnose at one time or another with very little actual damage to the tree. I obviously can’t give you a definitive answer as to whether or not the tree will recover as that will depend on a variety of abiotic factors (rainfall, soil conditions, temperature, sunlight etc), but what I can say is that I’ve done MUCH heavier root pruning, especially on red maples, and most of those recovered just fine.
None of those roots that were cut were stem girdling roots. For some reason, the word ‘stem’ has been left out of the conversation about planting depth and excess mulch. Roots will graft to each other. And branches can graft to each other. But roots and stem (trunk) tissue will not graft together. Hence, the problem created by planting too deep and excess mulch against the stem. OP just created a whole bunch of spots where wood decay fungi can enter the root system when soil is added back over the roots. Or, left exposed those roots will be desiccated. Either way, a lot of work went into damaging that tree because of knee-jerk reactions here about root flares.
Here is a link more pictures if interested.
[more pictures](https://imgur.com/a/fAjv6Rk)
Should I put the soil back to the level where the white turns brown?
Do the cut areas still attached to the trunk need to be covered with soil? I recently did this (only one girdling root) and wasn’t sure what to do.
Not extra. Water it right up until the first hard Frost though. Make sure it goes into dormancy with some moisture in the soil.
That tree will always be stunted and require tlc. The fundamental problem is the abnormal root ball development from being kept in a pot too long. That growth now “set”.
The tree will make it , ya didn’t cut the Tap root which is the main artery of any tree
Since a tree goes in to protective state struggling from girdling roots you should see turn around in growth and appearance within a couple years. Tree just needs time now that it can breath a lot better.
I’m 90% confident it will make it. The roots you cut are probably supporting a small percentage of the tree’s feeder roots. For the future, it’s better to wait until the tree is dormant to do root work.
Be sure to keep the tree adequately watered and fertilized, and hold off on any pruning for a year. There are always people in this sub who say a tree will die when it’s had any significant amount of root pruning, but they are speaking from a place of inexperience.
Being a young sycamore, you could have cut it to the ground and cut all the roots you can find and it will still bounce back. But with that said, you will likely see signs of stress come spring. My money is that it will recover within a couple seasons
All circling roots can and should be removed. I was at a conference once where someone was lecturing about root pruning and someone asked “how many girdling roots can I safely cut?” And he said “all of them, if they are girdling roots (or will eventually) then they are not part of the healthy, functioning root system” paraphrased cause it was a few years ago
There are many more roots under the soil that will continue to nourish the tree. I think it’ll be OK.