problem

[Glen L. Madigan]

Greetings from New Zealand.

I have a sort of a problem. I have a tortured willow tree growing in my section, and it is getting quite large. It was there before I moved into the house ten years ago, and it looks as though it has been there another 30 or so years. The tree is not only getting large, it always grows over the power line to our house. Coupled with that, there is a quite a boggy area, (I think that it is a natural spring) near the tree.

What is the best solution, cut it down, or prune it? I want to put a garden around the area of the tree, but the roots are well embedded in the ground. I have just last weekend planted some water loving plants (including Chatham Island Lily) and at present not sure how they are going as yet. I dug the area for planting, and have found that immediately the area had filled with water, and the roots of the tree caused a bit of a headache when trying to dig.

If I cut the tree down, would the water problem be worse? I need some advice on what the best solution could be.

Glen L Madigan

[Doug Kanter]

The tree's doing well BECAUSE of the water. Cutting it down will make little difference in the water situation. Someone picky will chime in here and say "Oh, but everything you change makes SOME difference". Right. If a butterfly dies, something happens at the other end of the universe. But the removal of your tree won't change the characteristics of the water table on your property. How about having a competent tree service prune it nicely? Here in the states, the electric companies sometimes contract the work out to private companies, some of which are good at what they do. What about NZ?

[timothy]

Good Day Glen. I, personaly, would remove the tree all together. Once you factor in the fact that this tree will need to be re-pruned in X amount of years at X amount of cost, it's cheaper in the long run. Furthermore you'll have to spend the time in between pruning's looking at a dis-figured tree. I would suspect that the previous home owner planted the tree to firm up the ground and to soak up some of this water.

If you do decide to remove this tree, it's quite possible that the tree may re-grow from the stump. This may have to be dealt with a non-selctive herbicide or a good 'ol fashioned stump grinding.

If the water is an issue for you, you may look into a curtain drain,dry well or a french drain tile set up.

[SAS567]

I had my first veggie garden close to a HUGE Willow Tree. Even if a branch broke off from it and fell in the garden, it would start growing. Best to get rid of the entire tree, stump and all. Sue