That girdling root at the base of the maple on Elm Street is why we lost it in the storm

Rowan Roberts · 2026-09-23T04:35:04.473032+00:00

I keep seeing people plant trees too deep and it finally cost a client a big silver maple up on Elm Street last week. The storm that came through Thursday took it down at the base and when I cut the stump I found a girdling root wrapped almost a full circle around the trunk, maybe 3 inches thick, cutting off the flow right there. This tree had been in the ground probably 15 years and the guy who planted it buried the root flare a good 6 inches under the soil line. What happens is the roots circle around instead of spreading out, and every year that root gets fatter and chokes the trunk until the whole thing is a hollow shell waiting for a hard wind. I know because I've now pulled 4 stumps on that same block with the same problem, all planted by the same crew back in the 2000s. Check your root flare people, you should see where the trunk widens out before it hits dirt, not a straight pole going into the ground. Has anyone had luck doing root collar excavation on a tree that's already this far gone, or is it usually just a removal at that point?

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That girdling root at the base of the maple on Elm Street is why we lost it in the storm | Arborists - Opinions Matter