Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Trees on Levy and near pond edge.

I have a question about trees near my ponds edge and on my levy. Should I remove them form the shore? Should I have a certain amount of footage between the water and my trees? If I have larger trees on my levy should I just leave them alone at this point? Or sould I get rid of them? I have trees all around my pond pretty close to the edge. And on my levy. It looks pretty cool but is it a good thing or bad? Below is a pic of my pond and the trees you see on the left side is where my levy is. I don't think it's leaking now but should I be concerned with all the trees on it?

Thanks RC51

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We have trees on our dam as well. I was really worried about it until DIED came over and took a look see. The trees on our dam are fairly old and established and DIED told me to leave them alone that removing them could cause more of a problem than leaving them.

I think it depends upon the type of trees and the size of the dam, but it'll be interesting to see what the experts say. I know the consensus is not to plant trees on the dam but if they've been there a while who knows.

Rules of Thumb for trees on the dam:

Over 4" in diameter and healthy - leave the tree, trim intelligently to help reduce the sail area and hence risk of blowing over.

Under 4" in diameter - remove.

Over 4" in diameter and unhealthy - prayer and/or heavy machinery and rework are called for.

Great stuff Theo!

Seriously, that was a compliment with no hidden agenda.

Hey JHAP,

Well that's what I am kind of afraid of. If I remove them will the roots die and create leaks??? Or if I leave them will the roots grow and create leaks??? To many things to worry about!!! I had heard but don't know for sure if the tree is over 20 feet tall leave it alone? Has anyone ever heard that is there any truth to that?

I would go by Theo's rule of thumb.

Our trees are HUGE (some of the cedars on the dam are are, in my estimation over 50 feet tall). I like trees around a pond but that is a personal preference. We actually have a blend of both at our pond (about half is tree lined and about half is not).

Thanks Theo I apprecate the input. I believe I have some that are just under the 4 inch diameter and smaller so I will slowy get rid of them. And trim the rest.

Hey Jeff I also have some 50 foot tall cedars. They grow so slow I can't imagine how old those guys are at this point. They are to cool to cut down that's for sure.

I have been slowly removing a bunch of sassafras trees from our pond. Talk about a pain! As for Cedars. I had 5 50 footers on the North side of my house that we had to remove. They were great but ice storms two years in a row did a number on them. On the plus side I had a guy come out with a portable mill and now have a lot of nice Red Cedar boards to play with (Paid the sawmill operator by letting him keep half the boards).

RC51
I follow Theo's rule

We have a different type of Cedar out west than you do, we have Incense Cedars. They can grow to well over 100 feet. Here one on our property, kinda dwarfs my 4Runner.


I cut down as few large trees as possible. So far I've only had to cut down 1 cedar that was about 35 feet tall, kinda broke my heart. I had a huge oak on our property topple over last year. The base was all rotted out. I was very bummed to see that huge oak laying on it's side.

Don't they just smoke, like, forever after a forest fire?

Belongs in the pond management little black book...very useful herr G.

And all this time, we thought he was just a pretty face.

Time to see your Ophthalmologist again, DD.

Oh no, not another go round with Dudley.

We recently went through the same thing. We had trees on our damn and we had a leak. Our leak was a combination of tree's roots and muskrat's. I hated to give up the trees but our pond guy said one way to help prevent muskrats and groundhogs is to keep the damn maintained by mowing. Removing the trees will also help find any potential problems and return of these animals. We decided that since he was repairing the damn, it was in our best interest to clean off the entire damn. He uprooted them with his dozer and rebuilt the damn. See pictures below. The trees that you see in the after picture are just behind the damn.

before

After