Trenching Trouble

[jandsrogers]

I am new to this site and have a question about my oak trees that I am hoping someone can help me with. I live in the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio. We have primarily Texas Live Oaks on our property. We hired someone to run electricity from our house to an outbuilding. When they dug the trench, they cut too close to some of our Live Oaks. They trenched about 12" deep and right between two trees which were about 10-12 feet apart (so about 5-6 feet from the base of each tree). In looking in the trench, I saw two roots about 3" in diameter that were cut, along with some smaller stringy-type roots. The trees are probably about 12"-18" in diameter.

I am very concerned for the health of my trees. Can anyone tell me what impact this might have on the trees and if there is anything I can do about it? Thank you.

 

[PUclimber]

Well it's not really good for the tree but the way it sounds to me is that it doesn't seem like that much of a problem. The roots that are the most important ones are the ones that fall within the zone below the crown of the tree. This area is the critical root zone. The only thing that might happen in that case would be that side of the root system would be more likely to fail. In my opinion it's nothign really to worry about.

 

[treeseer]

Well it's not really good for the tree but the way it sounds to me is that it doesn't seem like that much of a problem.

I disagree; it's a huge problem. Critical root zone on a mature live oak 18" dia is at least 18' radius. You need to immediately do all you can to invigorate root function on the untrenched portion of the root system. See the link below for Mulching, Mature Tree Care, etc.