Rebuilding a deck and trying to clear these up before the water comes back. Thanks in advance.
by failureinflesh
Rebuilding a deck and trying to clear these up before the water comes back. Thanks in advance.
by failureinflesh
14 Comments
The best way? A stump grinder. Most economical way? Shovel and chainsaw.
Those are Cypress knees. They are known to come alive and dance around during full moons. You’d be wise to leave them be.
Cyprus knees are breathing roots, which indicates a flooding risk for the area. If you aren’t cutting the trees down, you’ll want to leave all the knees. No matter what though, plan for potential flooding in that area.
Okay. These don’t grow where I live but I do have tree knowledge. So what I’m wondering is, if the knees are attached to living trees, and these cypress trees are holding the soil in place during flooding, while also drinking up some of the water, won’t removing the knees create big problems?
Soil erosion? Longer wait for flood waters to recede? Maybe other issues I’m unaware of.
The knees grow quite slowly, do they not? What about building the deck over top of the knees?
Environmentally, IMO, removing the knees will cause damage.
Don’t! Just pretend their accents on your garden. These roots will grow over 6ft tall eventually and look amazing.
Blow them mothafuckas up!
(Safely)
You’d better check your local laws. Depending on where it is, it might be against the law. Also, you’ll wish you hadn’t cut them in the long run. Your trees will do more good for you to keep the local environment in good condition than you could ever do yourself.
https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=1238893
Leave. All gone. Your welcome
I would call rootaroader
You’re in a wetland and these knee roots are part of mitigating flooding. You really should just leave them be and work around/over them.
You could ask one of the arborist subs what they’d do. They may say you can chop so much away before seeing real negatives.
Yes, cypress knees (pneumatophores) can generally be cut off without killing or harming the tree. They are not essential for the tree’s survival, especially in well-drained landscapes. The best practice is to cut them off with a pruning saw roughly 1 to 2 inches below the soil surface to allow for lawn mowing and to keep them hidden, advises the LSU AgCenter.
I’m in Florida but just found this with a quick search: https://library.municode.com/tx/san_antonio/codes/unified_development_code?nodeId=ARTVDEST_DIV3LATRPR_S35-511LA
Looks like in San Antonio you may need an application to remove them if your deck is over 200 sq ft. It may be denied as bald cypress trees have some protection there.
Abacadabra!
many many places have resource protection areas (RPAs) and RPAs generally have large buffer zones around them … if you’re trying to build where these are, you are certainly encroaching on the RPA ..