Hello!
I’m a new homeowner and inherited some beautiful live oaks. We were horrified to learn that it was harmful for the trees when our landscapers covered the root flares with mulch/soil. We don’t have a ton of experience with owning live oaks so I had purposefully sought out a landscape design company who had knowledge about native plants and specifically live oaks, so learning that their work was potentially harmful was disappointing to say the least! I had an arborist come out last winter to do some trimming and she told me they were indeed buried and to wait until dead of summer to uncover.
The photos are of the first tree I worked on today and I can’t tell if I’m even close to the root flare. There are so many tiny roots that I’m incredibly anxious about the damage done. Am I hurting or helping at this point? Given the wet summer, should I wait to do this until winter? Should I hire the arborist to come do air spading? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We just want to be good caretakers of these beautiful trees!
by Nurse_PoundCake
3 Comments
r/arborists is a really helpful sub
With trees this large, the little tiny roots you’re finding won’t have much of an effect on them. This trees root system stretches out 6-7 times farther than the tree is tall.
I bought a house that had giant oaks buried like this too. I dug them out in stages and over time cut quite a few roots the size of my thumb that were girdling. The trees are doing great now.
It’s probably ok, seems mulch was applied more recently. If it was years of mulch and leaf buildup, the guidance I got was to remove about an inch every other month.