I am in the middle of putting in a pathway with pavers that requires me to dig up 7 inches of soil in order to put in crushed gravel to be compacted followed by sand then the pavers themselves. In one area of this path, I am within 3 feet of a 60 foot tall Western Red Cedar and have come across several 1 inch thick roots with spider roots attached. My wife thinks I may upset the root strength and stability of this tree by cutting anything bigger than a spider root, but I am only cutting through on one side of the tree leaving 3 other sides (I am dividing the tree root system into quadrants) untouched. Does anyone think I may be upsetting the stability of this tall tree, or even slowly kill it, by cutting through these roots? The tree is also withing 20 feet of our house, so my wife figures if it falls down, it will hit us as we sleep. Thank you to any wisdom on cutting these painful to extricate roots. It is not an option to place the path further away from this tree in this particular area due to other immovable objects in the way. Also, if I cannot cut through them, what are my other options? We have had gravel in previous years, but would prefer not to do it again. Guido
Best not to cut roots that close to the tree. Can you add an ornamental bridge, so as to make a feature out of avoiding the roots? Something like this, perhaps.
Michael, Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I cannot add the bridge, although it does look quite lovely. I think I may just dig around the roots with my hand trowel (which I have been doing all weekend so far) and add the gravel underneath, around and on top of the roots. Somewhat painstaking, but would not want the tree to fall down because of my negligence. Guy
I don't know if you can cut those roots, but if you want to avoid this problem in the future, then you could dig a vertical copper plate into the ground all along the directions you don't wants the roots to grow. The trees don't pierce with their roots the copper, so, every time someone wants to avoid problems of this kind with a big tree or plant, can do this. Don't worry, the only thing plants do in this case is to avoid the copper and change the direction the root grows, you don't hurt them. I hope I've been useful even if I did not answer to your question! :)
