Rant: My neighbor said to just cut the roots on his big maple and now the whole thing is leaning

He had this huge silver maple in his yard in Toledo and was sure the surface roots were a trip hazard. I told him we needed to do a full assessment, maybe air spade some soil, but he said his old landscaper friend told him to just saw the big ones off. So he did, about a 4 inch diameter root on the windward side. Now, after that big storm last week, the tree has a solid 10 degree lean. I mean, I saw it coming but he wouldn't listen. Anyone dealt with a situation like this and know if a cable system could even save it at this point?

3 comments

3 Comments

harper_burns592d ago

That's a tough spot. I've seen this exact thing happen with a client's oak in Sylvania. They cut three major surface roots for a patio and the tree was on the ground after the next windy night. A cable might buy some time, but is it really fixing the problem? The tree lost a main anchor. How much stress can that trunk take before it just gives up? I'd be worried it's a band-aid on a much bigger wound.

ray_burns602d ago

My old neighborhood had six or seven big pines come down over five years after the city put in new sidewalks. They all looked fine until they didn't. It's like we keep trying to patch things that are already broken at the core, from trees to houses to even some relationships. The fix just hides the real damage for a little while.

sagejackson2d ago

Remember that big maple my neighbor had out front? They did the same thing, cut a huge root to run a new sewer line. They cabled it too, looked fine for almost two years. Then one calm Tuesday afternoon, just a regular day, we heard this huge crack and the whole thing just leaned over into the street. The cable was still there, holding a piece of trunk that had split right off. It never really healed, the tree was just waiting to fail.