Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions tree line excavating out...

Does anyone know the grade like if your excavating close to a giant tree? I have 80 feet tall 3 feet round dougless fir tree's all over. Id like to cut as close as I can to the tree when I did the pond, but worried that the tree would topple over into the pond (or on me!) haha Does anyone know the rule of thumb on this? From the base of the tree. Where should I start digging and what grade? Should I use if I have heavy clay soil? I only want to dig down 8 feet..so just wondering?

I don't know them, but in my experience, some trees are very easy to kill if you just cut a few roots, or compact the soil around the tree. What really sucks is that you don't know it's dead for at least a year. Then you will see one branch way up high with all the needles turning brown. A month later, it will be half a dozen branches. And in time, all of them will be brown.

There is no saving it when it happens, and usualy you have already finished the project that killed the tree. My first time was with a driveway. It died just over a year later and of course, the road was in place and being used. Fortunatley it was just a gravel road and it wasn't too expensive to take out the tree.

With a pond, you might very well kill the tree with all the water. Too much water will rot the roots and kill the tree. How long this takes to happen is beyond my knowledge, but it's something I'd expect. Dry country trees don't do well in wet conditions.

As for cutting the ground close to it, there is no danger of a healthy tree falling over from the dirt being removed on one side of it. In fact, those big pines require massive amounts of dirt all the way around the rootball to be femoved to get them to fall over. Sometimes to a depth of over ten feet deep on the ones I've taken out similar in size to yours.

If you want to save the tree, you need to walk around it and look up into the air. Find the point where the branches end and stand directly under that that spot. Now measure how far from the trunk you are. Double that number and you might be ok digging without killing the tree.

One thing I've learned is that when a tree that I really like is removed, I don't miss it like I thought I would.

Good luck,
Eddie

Thanks eddie for the info...Yeah 10 feet beyond the "drip line" of the tree is what I figured. I wouldnt care if I killed it or not...just didnt want it tumbling over into the pond if I cut away at one side of it.