Tree Roots

[T. L. Pope-Green]

I have a lot of roots from a maple tree exposed, is there anything you can do about them? TIA

[Doug Kanter]

Not much. I couple of my neighbors built raised beds on top of the roots, which worked for about 2 seasons. The tree grew very fine roots upward into the soil and turned it into the equivalent of botanical steel wool. Impossible to hack through the resulting tangle.

If you want to hide them, plant a bulletproof groundcover like vinca or pachysandra. But, if your goal is to make the root area mow-able, forget it.

[Suzy O]

This is very common and proper for maples. Repeat after me, "surface roots are good". ;) If you look closely, you can see that they look the same as the bark of the trunk, not like roots typically buried under soil. Piling soil on these will eventually cause them to rot & the rot will travel into the vascular system of the tree, eventually killing it. Best bet is to remove whatever soil, grass, etc. that's over the surface roots and replace with any mulch except! stone or marble, which holds too much heat over the roots.

Hope this helps.

Suzy O, Zone 5 Wisconsin

[Steveo]

Yep! They can also be chopped out but that's a short term fix since you're actually root pruning when you do that, and so you're encouraging more surface roots to fill that area in.