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barplants123

plant large tree next to old roots of large removed tree?

barplants123 barplants123
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago

we had to get a ~30 year old maple chopped down because it grew like a "Y" and was rotting in the Y and half of it was over the neighbors' pools, sheds, fences etc.

The ground here is only about a foot of good soil and then it's a lot of clay, so trees tend to root shallow and far instead of deep and close.

~15 years ago the now gone maple's root was already up to the neighbor's foundation about 50 feet away.

I want to plant a new oak or maple next to where the old maple was (but will prune/train it to not grow like a double/triple trunk Y, and also will plant it farther away from neighboring properties).

Will this work?

I might go ahead and dig up some of the old roots but if I don't have to go crazy about it then I won't .

If a chainsaw didn't dull in 5 seconds in dirt chopping old roots, then this wouldn't be such a problem but I end up having to use a sawsall and it takes a while, and I have to resharpen the sawsall with a grinder like every 10 minutes and I also make very aggressive teeth on it). The ground in this particular area also tends to stay wet so the wood/roots will be harder to cut.

I made a diagram to try and show the spacing. Baiscally the old maple (silver maple I beleive) was over the grey hexagon (the main roots are that large for scale but the canopy of the maple was larger than that hexagon FYI) and the new tree would be about 30 ft from the house, but right next to roots of the old tree. We had the stump grinded but that does nothing in terms of this. thanks



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