I moved into my house about a year ago and have just now started to work on building up native plants in my yard in earnest. I was raking the area around my live oak to get ready to seed some inland sea oats and turks cap and realized the root flare wasn’t exposed at all. I gently dug down to expose it. Does this look like the right level of exposure now? It was buried up to where the more textured bark starts. should I try to flatten/lower the area around it a bit too? It had a mulch circle that could be brought out further to the drip line of the tree, and I could try to level/flatten the area closer to the trunk with the root flare. Curious what others think about that plan.
by hello-earthling
4 Comments
Good luck with all your native planting!
That’s what I would do, lower/level your planned planting area to what you did around the tree trunk. That gives you enough room to then add the ≈2in of mulch, and for edging I personally prefer an air gap, but dealer’s choice there.
Yes. You have done well by exposing the flair.
A split trunk like this can be a longterm risk for the tree. Ypu may want to see and arborist about removing the smaller trunk on the left
Paging u/austintreeamigos because they are legendary and you already did all I know to tell you to do!