Buried Trees

[Hoosier2]

Can someone more knowledgable help?

I'm building a house in a sandy soil region. On my lot there are a lot of oaks (the lot is wooded) and I am raising the grade up to the new house, roughly 5 feet over previous. I have taken out most of the trees for the grade change, but there are a few on the edges I would like to keep if they will survive. The majority of the trees are 2-4 inches in diameter, possibly buried 1 foot over the previous grade. If some of the small trees are buried in the sand with the grade change, what is their chance of survivial? Is it better to keep them, will they live, or just cut them down and replant ornamentals?

Thanks in advance for your suggestion.

 

[alanarbor]

Their chance of survival would be poor. If you wanted to, you could dig and ball them, and then replant following the grade change, at the proper level

 

[begleytree]

I just took down 3 today that were buried under 3 ft of dirt. Dead as nails.
-Ralph

 

[Lumberjack]

I say cut them down, or if your ambitious dig and replant. Burying them under a foot of sand isnt going to be a very long term fix, they might live a couple more years but they are going out sooner than later.

 

[treeseer]

Entirely depends on species and soil. If they're ash etc. they will send out new roots from the trunk inot the fill. Others will die. If you don't know what you have, you can't know how they will respond.

 

[Lumberjack]

Half of the "higher ups".

 

[P_woozel]

Large tree wells.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I'm with Woozel, build a retaining wall a yard or more away from the base of the trees.

Replanting is a good option too, get an arborist and a tree spade in to move the best specimines in and out. With sandy soil I would use as big a spade as possible since the root systems are usually more diffuse, unless there is a higher water table.

here is a paper on buried too deep http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/ipmnet/djTreeroots.html

And here is one on girdling roots, which is caused by soil above the root flair.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/DD7501.html