Update: Spent a whole day on a single Bradford pear removal

The root flare was completely girdled by a buried concrete collar from an old fence. Took 8 hours with a demo saw and a digging bar just to get to the trunk. Anyone else dealt with hidden concrete around a tree base?

3 comments

3 Comments

ericj452mo ago

That concrete collar sounds brutal, but eight hours seems like a long time. I've seen trees push through worse and still look okay for years. Could the girdling have been that bad if the tree was still standing?

clark.alex2mo ago

I used to believe the same thing, @ericj45. A tree in my neighbor's yard had a sidewalk slab lifted a good three inches and it seemed fine. Then a storm took it down last fall. The arborist who cleaned it up showed me the roots. They were paper thin where they hit the concrete, just couldn't move water up the trunk anymore. The tree was basically a standing dead man for years, slowly starving. It changed how I look at any tree near pavement.

troysmith2mo ago

Hearing @clark.alex's story makes me look at the cracked sidewalk by my own place differently now.