A lifetime of girdled roots

[JEasley]

I need some help determining what to do with my ~40 y/o red maple with some pretty gnarly girdled roots.

I bought my house a little over a year ago and there’s a beautiful red maple in the front yard. Unfortunately, it had a mulch volcano around the trunk and when I pulled it back, I ran into what looks like an entire lifetime of girdling roots left unchecked. The canopy isn’t as full as it should be and had just 2 or 3 small branches at the top without leaves. It generally looks like the leaves are a bit sad.

I’ve started removing a lot of the fine roots and pencil diameter roots to get a better look at the larger girdled roots below. I’m perfectly capable of removing the < 2 inch diameter roots by myself, but was trying to gain an understanding of how many roots beyond the superficial layers need to be removed as well and if I should get professional assistance for that.

I’m guessing I need to either rent or pay for some air spading to get a deeper look under ground too.

These roots are so intertwined I can’t tell if I’m even seeing any “real” roots or just decades old girdles roots that have gotten 6in thick and fused with each other.

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi you’re my only hope…..

 

[pdqdl]

My, oh my! That's quite the tangle. I wouldn't bother with the air spade. Expensive and pointless. Those girdling roots need to be cut.

If you want to work that out, extending the lifetime of your tree, I'd make one vertical cut through that ring of woven roots, down to at least one foot below grade. Said cut should be done so as to minimize damage to roots that are not girdling the tree, and the gap you create needs to be a bit wider than a single chainsaw cut, so that none of the roots can splice themselves back together. The tricky part is to know when to stop cutting. You do NOT want to injure the main trunk.

The girdling roots will die off, the radiating roots will thrive. Try to avoid cutting or damaging the radiating roots.

How to do this? An axe works well, but takes patience and a bit of skill. That would be my first choice. Carbide tipped chain on a chainsaw would be really fast and easy, but those chains don't come cheap.

Next step: two years later, make a similar cut on the opposite side of the tree. That should be adequate to protect you from girdling roots that will choke off your trees trunk as the tree & roots continue to increase in diameter.

Oh yes! August isn't probably the best time for that. I'd go for September, prior to the autumn storage of plant sugars in the roots. Definitely not during an August heat wave.

 

[JEasley]

My, oh my! That's quite the tangle. I wouldn't bother with the air spade. Expensive and pointless. Those girdling roots need to be cut.

If you want to work that out, extending the lifetime of your tree, I'd make one vertical cut through that ring of woven roots, down to at least one foot below grade. Said cut should be done so as to minimize damage to roots that are not girdling the tree, and the gap you create needs to be a bit wider than a single chainsaw cut, so that none of the roots can splice themselves back together. The tricky part is to know when to stop cutting. You do NOT want to injure the main trunk.

The girdling roots will die off, the radiating roots will thrive. Try to avoid cutting or damaging the radiating roots.

How to do this? An axe works well, but takes patience and a bit of skill. That would be my first choice. Carbide tipped chain on a chainsaw would be really fast and easy, but those chains don't come cheap.

Next step: two years later, make a similar cut on the opposite side of the tree. That should be adequate to protect you from girdling roots that will choke off your trees trunk as the tree & roots continue to increase in diameter.

Oh yes! August isn't probably the best time for that. I'd go for September, prior to the autumn storage of plant sugars in the roots. Definitely not during an August heat wave.

Thank you!! Ill cross my fingers and give this a try!