Several local arborists have said it was unlikely to survive either rebuilding the wall (would have to cut back the roots too much) or transplanting (root system too constrained to hold up a canopy.)

==>>> ideas about what???

i would defer to the peeps who actually saw it in person.. before i would ever contradict them based on a photo ...

i am sorry.. its gotta go .. period...

your base problem.. is that you are looking at it as a negative.. rather than grabbing hold of the potential of what can be ... rather than what it was ...

get it out of there.. have the wall work done... then go sit on the other side of the street and dream about the future ...

i suspect.. that that space could be made into one fabulous landscape... with its 3 dimensional possibilities.... if i could ever see the house ...

good luck

ken

ps: what is that stuff over the garage door.. growing in????

FWIW the photo looks like the pin oak has some yellow and brown leaves. Not a sign of impending death over here but seems a sign of disagreeable soil for the species. Could be heat stress I suppose also.

Sad to see big trees go I know but they do not fit everywhere.

I agree with Ken here, once you remove it the possibilities of what you can do with that area are numerous, and will look a million times better than one tree that will never be happy there.

I was going to ask also what is that hanging over the garage door?

Thanks to those who responded. We are excited about the landscaping possibilities (including a smaller, more appropriate tree!) but sentimental about losing a tree that has sheltered us all these years : (

Trees this size/type might be common in the country or suburbs, but in the city they are rare treasures, so we wanted to explore every possibility of saving it.

And the big plant hanging over my neighbor's garage is just your basic overgrown English ivy, I think. Sorry, not very exciting.

I seriously doubt your pin oak is causing your retaining wall to keel over, retaining walls are well known to slide. Ground moves, it's not stationary to popular belief. I would reinforce your present wall with steel rod. Being in construction a good part of my life, you can easily rebuild your wall without damaging the tree roots. The wall doesn't have to be torn down with big machinery, as for your garage, I'm sure the house has settled since being built, most every house foundation you look at forms cracks. While the tree will get bigger, it's growth is still confined to a limited area and I don't think it will become a giant. If it had huge ground space to grow, then yes.

Joe - thanks for weighing in! The original photo may not do the wall damage justice. It's pushed out so much you would have to excavate just to make the wall straight.

Unfortunately that wall is right on our property line with the city, so we can't build a footing for a new wall or reinforce the existing wall from the front side. Even the small dirt area in front is technically public sidewalk.

I think you would probably have to cut some tree roots just to make the new wall plumb. We actually had an engineer draw up plans for a wall with steel piers, but the arborist said it was highly unlikely the tree would survive the construction shock even if we tried.

As I said - this really is my last ditch effort! So grateful for everyone's advice.

Another view. The foundation wall of the house is actually behind the tree - we have no idea if the roots are damaging it too.

One more view from above, so you can see how little room the oak has. For scale, the trunk is about 15" diameter.

Does anyone know if a tree this size that has grown in such a compacted root space could survive being transplanted somewhere with more room to spread out? The arborist said no, but . . ?

I do think I'm ready to let it go. The advice to think of the possibilities for making it even better was helpful.

Someplace there is a video of Disney spending $xx,xxx to use a helicopter to move a large tree they planned on transplanting so anything can be done.

On my budget I would just start over with a new tree.

Concrete walls and planters are just not a forever thing. Seems highway bridges last fifty years around here.

Stadiums twenty or thirty.

All kidding aside, if I pour a concrete drive tomorrow I bet I outlive it.

My home is on a gentle hill. It has changed in the decade I have lived here.

Even steel has a life expectancy. I should link some pics from under my '68 when it was apart.

So yeah, just build a decent wall and make sure your drainage is right. The next generation will have to maintain it but that is true of almost anything.

Take it out, as Ken advises. That's a bad place for a large tree, and there is a good reason pin oaks are rare treasures in urban settings. They don't do well.

As for your retaining wall, it's problem is pretty obvious. No weep holes, nowhere for water to go. Hydraulic pressure is the number one cause of retaining wall failure. Forget a concrete wall. Do something that will allow water to shed. Do bricks, stone, anything but a solid wall of concrete waiting to fail.

Earthquake?

Good eye on lack of weep hokes.

Well, it has plenty of weep holes NOW!

The wall also looks like it wasn't angled back a bit (I forget the technical term for that) to withstand some water pressure, and I would also take a wild guess that no gravel backfill was used -- just soil up to the concrete.

To the OP -- read about retaining wall construction before you replace that wall, and if a professional wants to take any shortcuts and says it will be fine, fire him. Walls are expensive, and they are often cobbled together by people who have no clue that engineering is involved.

Thanks everyone.

The old wall is probably close to 100 years old, so certainly not up to current standards. We actually had the planned new wall designed by a structural engineer, so it should be built to last : )

poaky1, we are in earthquake country - another reason we want to remedy this situation quickly.

Does anyone know if I would be able to take cuttings from the oak before it goes? How do you do it?