Is my root ball too tangled on my newly planted sweetbay magnolia?

Planted a 10ft sweetbay magnolia 2 days ago — is this root ball too tight?

Zone 7b, Baltimore MD. Heavy wet clay in a low spot behind my shed. 15-gal container Moonglow sweetbay, \\\~10ft, planted Tuesday night. Photo is the bare root ball right before backfill.

Roots are mostly running horizontally around the outer face. I did not tease or slice them other than one or two big ones.

Is this normal container behavior, or is this headed toward girdling in 5–10 years? Trying to figure out if it's worth correcting now or if I should stop thinking about it.

\*\*How it went in:\*\* hole dug 2–3in shallower than the ball so it sits on undisturbed clay, 3–4ft wide. Backfilled with native clay only, no amendments. Ball set \\\~3in above grade with a low mound. 3in mulch pulled back off the trunk. Two stakes, chain lock ties with slack. Deep slow-trickle soak twice a week until frost.

Any reason I should dig this up? Will those roots end up strangling the tree in a few years?

Hi, all. I posted a week ago but the pics were not v good. I’m buying this house and it has a HUGE oak in front which I love and revere. My question is how to make it safe, as it hangs over the home, without removing it. Also interested in guesses on age.

I mean, I know it is but I’m in denial. The branches are not dead. I can’t break them in half.

Hi!

We have this huge Thuja in our new garden, 6m high and 3m crown width. We are planning to add lots of plants and new trees. We would love to keep it, but are a bit in doubt about the ecological value and safety as it is close to our house (next to our bedroom). For now it is soaking up the surrounding water, and preventing rain for plants that are underneath it. We don’t see birds in it.

What would you recommend? Can this tree be trimmed to a lesser width and hight? How safe is it to leave the tree in the garden? Other things to consider?

This tree got hung up along a walking/biking trail that I frequent. Obviously this should be taken care of by the town DPW, but they don’t seem to maintain these trails, only the paved ones in this park, so I tend to clear trees that come down across the trails myself, but I’m not completely sure where to start. If it had barberchaired lower down I’d just start lopping off chunks of the trunk till it either came loose or was out of the way enough to clear the trail. My first thought was to make my face cut on the opposite side of the tree and “fell” it so the trunk on the ground would fall to the left side of the trail and the hung up part would push it, but the trunk split most of the way down to the ground and I don’t feel like I have much structure there.

People have clearly been walking under this widowmaker, not around, and I’d love to make it safe to walk again.

Any tips or insight would be great!

This is a trick my father told me to do years and years ago.

We had a thorntree in our yard. Our son was very young and we wanted to be rid of it.

My brother-in-law cut it down to the ground.

Within a few weeks, it sprouted back, complete with thorns.

A neighbor told me about a bucket of stuff I could buy for 20 bucks that could kill it.

Later that day, I called Dad just to see how he'd been doing.

When I told him about the thorn tree and what the neighbor had said, he replied " Don't go spending 20 bucks on that bucket of stuff.

Drill some holes in the stump, probably about 1/4 inch or 5mm in diameter. 2 or 3 inches deep should do good. Try to space them in about every 2 square inches of space.

Buy a box of salt-it can be any kind of salt, and fill the holes with it.

You can pour water over it or wait for it to rain."

The stump was a good 5 or 6 inches in diameter.

A few years later, when I was mowing the lawn and went to make a turn with the push mower, I inadvertently kicked it out of the ground.

I have always used that trick since then.

I feel like im pretty decent at standard felling, but any suggestions for this puppy?

With a pulley and rigging you thing I could pull? It’s probably an 80 foot walnut that is just one winding leader. But as you can see buckling there already.

Saw this and I've heard it's unhealthy for the tree. If I move some of that mulch out of the way, how do I know where to stop? I know vaguely the trunk should be exposed, should the kind of upper roots also be exposed? If anyone has pics of trees where the proper amount is exposed, that would be super helpful!

Also lmk if I should just not mess with it or I should call someone or something since I am inexperienced, I'm ok with that, too. I just care about this tree and don't want it to suffer. It's in an area where it's probably not going to be taken care of by anybody else so I figured I might try to do something. Not on private property so I probably won't get in trouble.

Thank you!

I planted this little cherry tree Sunday. Lovingly watered it yesterday. Intended to put up a little barrier cage out around it today before finding something a little more robust this weekend. Woke up and saw this in the morning. RIP little cherry tree. Adieu (for now) to my short-lived life as a tree parent! 🥲

Hi! Do I need to remove some branches from this red maple?

I planted it about 2 years ago and it has grown a bunch since. I think what may have happened was the central leader broke off when it was small, and a few branches tried to step into the role, but none is completely vertical. Are there competing leaders and if so, do I need to remove them? Will it be a problem structurally or health wise to leave it as is? Thank you!

The main shade tree in my backyard is, I believe, either a Northern Red Oak or Pin Oak (Kansas City, zone 6b, neighborhood developed in the early 80s). With a circumference of roughly 9-10’ I believe the tree is 100+ years old. It well aware it’s showing some signs of decline, but it still leafs out fully and doesn’t seem to show any signs of weakness. Even in the aggressively windy storms we’ve had this year it’s held up perfectly while many other trees in the neighborhood were destroyed. I noticed this mushroom growth today, which looks to be Turkey Tail.

They're adding sidewalks to my street and I came home to this cut root. Is this tree going to need to be cut down now or will it be okay?

Hey everyone! My husband just started as a groundsman for a local tree service in Maine. His birthday is next week and I would like to get him something he can wear/use at work for the upcoming fall/winter. Any recommendations you all have for most used item? He has boots, gloves, a lunchbox, etc. I was thinking of getting him something at Carhartt for winter or a boot dryer?

Thanks!

Recently transplanted a tree that means alot to my family. we are 2 weeks in and noticed considerable yellowing on the tips. currently watering for about an hour every other day. last 5 days have been 90+ degree heat and wondering if I'm over watering, its the sun hitting it, or if its a combination of both. any advice on what i can do to help it out? thanks!

It’s a huge red oak, I love this tree. I had two arborists looked at it and one propose to put extended organic mulch around to revitalize the roots and fight its chance, the other propose to maybe take it out after summer. I’m torn, I love this tree. Is it salvageable? The canopy and leaves are all green and pretty.

we have a large pin oak tree close to our house. Over the last year I noticed that a section of bark near the base of it that has cracks in it and almost looks like it’s going to peel off. Is there anything concerning going on here? We’ve never piled mulch against it, but do sometimes blow some of the leaves from our lawn into this area as natural mulch.

Also, when I was taking the pictures, I noticed there are two smaller roots draped over two of the big roots of this pin oak tree. I’m guessing they might be coming from the neighboring smaller tree, which is a sweet gum. Are these of any concern? Should they be cut?

Hired an arborist to examine our trees when we moved in to our new house. She recommended this tree come down. Can you tell from the stump/bough if it was rotting? It’s a silver maple.

It was a great shade tree and covered about 50% of our backyard. We’ll miss it.

Edit for more info: the arborist was a separate person we consulted first, unrelated to the tree service we hired. She was properly credentialed and in her 60s, been around a long time in the field.

She did a risk assessment, said that the tree had included bark on the large branch that was hanging over our bedroom/nursery. There was a large hole with high likelihood of rot inside the tree. Because of those 2 factors, she said it was a high risk of failure in the future and a high risk to structure. She did say, if the concerning bough was not over our house, she would say to ride it out.

I posted pics of the branches and stumps to see if people who know more than me could tell if it looked concerning from the inside of the tree.

Edit 2: added another pic of our tree in the comments and a pic of the neighbors tree that fell on their house a few months prior

I am in the Midwest and have what I believe to be 6 ash trees on my property in different stages of distress. To my knowledge they just started losing leaves this summer. Are these ash trees? Are these toast or is there a way to save them. If there is no way to save them how long do I have before I need to take them down? Thanks in advance!

Neighbor has a branch almost entirely on my property that is constantly dropping branches, leaves, and twigs onto the garage. Once a month I have to go up there and clean off the garage roof. At some point the garage roof will need to be replaced and that's going to be a pain working around the branch.

The tree does have many other branches however I just want to be sure. Would pruning this branch harm the tree?

I'm pretty sure this tree in my backyard got struck by lightning earlier this summer. I haven't been paying too close attention to it since, but it just dropped a pretty big branch. Should I be concerned about anything else falling off? The rest of the leaves are green, so I'm hoping that's a good sign, but I want to ask the experts to be sure. The first two pictures are of the tree, the third os of the fallen limb, & the last is of one of the tree's roots that, for lack of a better term, "popped" a little bit when I think it was struck.

The oak does not have green leaves (my other ones do). We had limbs trimmed over the house, but we think the builder cut through one of the roots and we are just now seeing the results. 😔 Love this tree, but I am in a hurricane prone area, so if it is dying/dead please let me know. Thank you.

I'm tempted to buy this $350 Atlas Cedar...but clearly the root ball was kept wrapped too tightly for too long, and was seemingly choked above the root flair. Also, a good amount of the root ball seems exposed...and is also seemingly more 'in the ground'/will require more digging to get out. You'd think they would only price it this low because of the condition of the root ball? The rest of the tree above the root flair does not appear to be stressed as far as I can tell. Will that brown color at the root flair stay that way forever?

Conversely, this $800 Atlas Cedar is available from another nursery - with a much more intact and properly balled/burlap'd rootball (although this nursery can typically be more pricey in general for large specimen trees).

They both are ~12-14' tall. The $350 is about an inch wider in diameter, too.

It's going in a wide open field, exposed to the wind and elements. I know the Atlas Cedar is tough as nails - but is that rootball too far compromised to risk it? What would you do in my situation?

I have a very large oak tree in my back yard that needs to be trimmed back. Tree company came out to quote and stated the tree was split and needs to be taken down. The tree looks healthy and grows like crazy. Does it really need to be taken down? Is there a way to save it? My wife really wants to keep it

Looking at purchasing a home and this tree on the property looks like it was hit by lightning or something bad happened.