Your grandpa's belief about how the roots should behave is pretty logical. Isn't that the same reason why people advise so often to deeply water the trees' soil, let dry, repeat, and thereby avoid frequent shallow watering. While at most times that logic might be true; just like most everything else in life. I am pretty certain that without much effort there can be found plenty exceptions to the rule. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I have 7, still living, out of the 9 oaks that I planted in deep silty loam soil, and which are next to an overflow of a pond, drainage ditch. The expanse between the upper banks of the ditch is about 6 feet wide. The banks slant with a little tapering, the ditch depth is 3-4 feet deep. In the rainy season the bottom of the ditch has flowing water, or the soil in the bottom is at least very wet. The sides of the ditch generally are very dry. During flash thunderstorms which drop a half inch or more water in an hour; the pond overflows into the Northern end of the ditch, at a rate which quickly fills the ditch with rushing and swirling water that most times reaches two thirds of the way up the banks, and in the worst downpour situations water fills the entire ditch especially where at the lower end of the ditch the water comes to the end of the ditch that has an even higher more abruptly straight up bank. This causes the water to suddenly crash and swirl, while gravity pulls on it to make the flow take a 90 degree turn and continue flowing on, into a small, but still relatively big for the area, culvert under the street and out again into a larger and lower elevated pond. This area is on the west end of the mt property. the street is an asphalt paved city street running along just on the farthest west side of the ditch. The lot's rain runoff drainage flows on this grass covere,d previously escavated lot down toward the southwest. The land slopes mostly toward the southwest with less, but still some slight sloping toward due west. That due west location where the lot ends, and is the end near where my one gallon sized potted Scarlet oaks were planted in two double and staggered rows about 10 feet or a little more, away from and along the beginning slope of the eastern bank of the ditch. The first year I planted the trees, I did not give them supplemental watering. That was back in the fall of 2004. For the first 12 months the rains came in seasonal times, but through the following December, January, and February of 2005 conditions were dry enough to be considered the first months of a major drought period. In Spring of 2005 the oaks received a few rains, but not enough, and by summer of 2005 we were deep into our drought period. All of 2006 and through February of 2007 the young trees encountered sever drought conditions. Since they were oaks they continued to survive but did not grow much if any. Today the trees are still no taller than 12-14 inches tall. Our recent, overly abundant spring and early summer rains have made them fill out and produce more branching, Still they have not sent up amy fairly tall water trunks. I would have thought that if your granddad's advice applies, these trees should by now have developed significantly deep roots and be showing at least a foot or so more top growth. The recently drought period that only ended in February of this year, had been so bad that all over town, great numbers of huge mature, deep rooted oaks, hickories, and other such trees died. My young scarlets hung in there, but never put on much if any top growth, which the, for so long, over dry soil could not have sustained. I have not dug up any of those trees to observe their root systems, but it is hard to believe that the roots would be abundantly and deeply developed after such drought. I do not see how their small and short canopies could feed and maintain very large of root systems. Anyway, if your Granddad's advice holds true for these little oak trees, they should end up being some tough trees.

Well, we all make sure we plant here in California - especially S. California coastal areas - with the root flare showing some. And, I still have issues with Phytophthora in the root zone (no Gummiosis, but root rot). I know the Gulf states also can issues with this as well. Now, actual ROOTS exposed, not necessarily, but the very tops of the roots can eventually show if you've planted on a mound, and the soil naturally will wash away a bit. That's fine, that's normal. I can see this in the 120 acre orange orchard behind me that is about 40 years old. The trees were planted a bit higher on berms (very, very low berms), with the drip lines running along each side of the berm. All to promote excellent drainage, and we're on well draining soil here, not clay. You can see the root flares on all the trees, and some root "knuckles". Again, quite normal here in California. And for Texas, more info about why not to plant too deeply: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/citrus/l2313.htm And, here is the exact recommendations of your Texas A&M Citrus Research Center in this article written by Dr. Sauls: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/citrus/L2306.htm Here is the quote from this part of "Citruculture - Orchard Establishment" from the main "Texas Citrus & Sub-Tropical Fruits" Texas A&M website, John: "The top of the root system should be set at or slightly above soil level. Either the top inch or so of medium should be removed and replaced with soil at planting or a 1-inch layer of soil should be placed over the medium as the final step in planting. The soilless medium has very good drainage; i.e., it contains considerable air space. Without sealing off unrestricted air movement into and out of the root ball, the medium will quickly dry out, causing moisture stress of the tree even though surrounding soil may be quite moist. Trees should be watered as soon as possible following planting to settle the tree and soil and to provide the initial moisture needed for establishment." So, your Texas A&M experts also recommend this same planting method. You can run this document by your experts from Mexico and Cuba. See what they have to say. But this is just basic common sense for all tree planting, and most especially for tree species susceptible to Phytophthora. And citrus most certainly are in that category. Patty S.

thanks Dingo. its not cold out tonight the low is 52. Today the high was 68. Good idea about trucking around the trees but I already heeled 25 paw paws in the ground, rinsed off 25 dogwoods and paper bagged them with 50 paw paw and 50 arborvitae. I put 25 arobrvitae 25 dogwood and 25 paw paw in a bucket of fresh water. I will plant the ones in water first thing in the morning. Hopefully I can get them all in the ground. I have a couple injuries from the military that have been getting worse the last couple years, or I would've been able to get all these trees in the first day.

'I go until you see the lump where the root flare starts .....You don't have to uncover any more than that,' Maybe on the smaller trees you describe. With larger trees, that have been growing for a longer period of time, the adventitious roots will thicken up and begin circling at the lower parts of the root flare. So it's necessary to remove enough dirt to get a good look at what's going on at that level as the OP has correctly done.