Eli5:When digging up a tree, how do you avoid digging up roots?
In: Earth Science
You dig far from the trunk. If you dig too close, you kill the tree. That’s why people tend to plant very small trees and wait for them to grow. Digging up a big tree takes a big hole and a lot of specialized machinery.
I had a similar situation last summer and ended up getting a lot of roots damaged. Here are the steps I would take for my next attempt: Things to consider:
1. Kind of tree and age of the tree. Some tree has root penetrate deeper down vs some that gets its root system spread
2.Landscape topography: If the land is rocky vs fertile with less rocks. Roots may go deeper or shallow based on topography
3. General rainfall in the region vs amount of water fed externally. Determine how deep and wide the roots may go depending upon the above
4. Nearby trees and vegetation: Whether you might harming the other trees in the process of relocating
5. Some trees have symbiotic relationships with other trees around them.
6. Check whether your trees communicates through their root system and propagate through Rhizomes.
Based on the above determine the circumference and depth of carving using appropriate tool. In any case, you are likely to damage some roots(of its own or of nearby trees, plants, shrub etc.).
A good question is, can you let the tree be where it is or do you have to move it because otherwise it may get destroyed as a part of the development? If your answer is to save it from getting destroyed, then I suggest you go ahead. Not otherwise.
Pick the branch that extends the farthest outward. Draw a circle around the tree using that branch as the radius. You can extend the circle of you really want to be sure. Dig around the circle. As for how deep you need to dig, that one I don’t know
The size of the tree determines how big the root ball needs to be for the tree to flourish if transplanted. Experts know these things and still some transplants fail.
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