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 Post subject: Trees planted too low
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 12:04 pm 
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Location: Dallas,TEXAS
I've got two young trees, a red oak and a sweet gum that, to my inexperienced eye, look as if they were planted to low in the soil. Both are fairly young but well established and look healthy. I'm not sure how to guestimate the age of either tree, but both are about 15 to 18 feet tall. They both have st. augustine growing right up to the trunk and the ground is level where they enter. Neither of them show signs of damage to the bark that I can recognize. I'm guessing that girdling is evident when a tree's bark looks as if it's malformed or separating from the trunk at ground level..

My question is how to go about exposing the root ball of these trees. In excavating some of the surrounding top soil wouldn't the resulting depression cause problems as well? Ideally I suppose that raising the tree would be best, and if so, how would one go about doing that?

~Dave


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PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 5:26 pm 
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Location: Garland
I don't think that if the tree looks healthy, you should attempt to actually raise it. That would most definitely stress it out more than just excavating a couple inches down around the trunk.

As far as the depression is concerned, you should put a circle of mulch several inches think around the base of the tree, of course in a manner which will leave the root ball exposed. This should keep excess water from draining towards the base of the tree, which should allow what does gather there from watering or rain to evaporate in a timely fashion

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 5:36 pm 
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I recently excavated some of the soil surrounding both of these trees' root balls and applied the full sick tree treatment. However, the inch and a half of rain we've had today has revealed that perhaps something more is needed for one of them. The sweet gum's mulch bed has about 2 inches of standing water at the base of the tree. It's still raining lightly here (and has been light but steady for the most part today) so I'm not sure how long it's going to take the water to drain off yet. I'm guessing this isn't good. Any advice about what to try next?

~Dave


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 17, 2003 9:35 pm 
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Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2003 12:12 pm
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Location: Garland
yeah that's a problem if its a long term issue, but if it is still raining I don't think there's much you can do about it immediately. Once the weather it stops raining that localized concentration should take care of itself pretty quickly...but I am definitely a beginner myself and even more definitely so in the area of trees in particular.

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