Soil erosion may be the cause of the increasing root exposure especially if water rushes across the roots at particular times of year or after heavy rains. The more usual cause, however, is soil compaction. The roots come to the surface because there is insufficient oxygen at lower depths. In many cases, builders put a fairly thin layer of loam/topsoil over heavily compacted clay. As the trees grow, the roots avoid the compacted soil and emerge near the surface.

Ferns and hostas may be possible, but maples have incredibly aggressive roots. They will quickly grow into either mulch or imported soil. Many people caution against putting soil on top of roots for fear that the tree will be killed. This may be true for some species, but about the only thing that can kill a maple (unless the imported beetles really take hold) is a chainsaw.

It's a lot of work in watering and weeding, but the area under maples is an ideal site for a moss garden.

Your maple is fine. It's not uncommon for them to have exposed roots. Their root system is very aggressive as mainegrower stated. Mulch isn't a bad idea if you want to improve the aesthetics. However, topsoil is a bad idea. Raising the grade of the soil can potentially kill a tree. If you wanted to add a small amount of soil here and there to plant your ferns and hostas then it shouldn't be a problem. Maples can make it difficult for other plants around them to get any water but if you already have moss there then you have enough moisture which will be further improved by adding the mulch.

the maple will fill any soil brought in.. just about as fast as you can put it there ...

i suggest potted material on top ...

and the maple will still grow into the pots...

in the alternative .... enjoy what the tree allows to grow there ... mosses can be very entertaining.. and dont need to be mowed ... lol

a blanket of mulch and a nice decorative bench.. and some nice pots.. would make for a very nice sitting area..

no time to post my pic of maple roots ... maybe later

ken

IMHO 10 yd topsoil is a waste of money if the intent is for lawn. If the intent is for a nice shade garden, go for it. The roots don't care one way or the other, but ensure you don't fill near the trunk (say, 2-3' away).

Dan

Thanks for the ideas ... sounds as if it won't (under any circumstances) do the tree any harm to have the roots increasingly exposed (is that right?) It does seem noticeably worse (in the sense that the roots are higher out of the surrounding soil) than it was when we bought the house 4.5 years ago... but perhaps the previous owners had filled with some soil? I do think there is some soil erosion as well (there is a slight slope), and I suspect having my golden retriever charging through there isn't helping any, either...

I love the idea of a moss garden -- I think there's a thread on the New England GW forum about one. But I also need something that will stand up to an 80-lb dog running through it, so I'm wondering about some of the more resilient ground covers, combined with a mulched (or gravel?) path through the area to the open part of the yard. Is there any harm to planting ground cover (shade loving, of course) around the maples, as long as it's not ivy (or at least, as long as whatever it is doesn't climb UP them). I don't have any sense of how competitive ground covers might be in terms of the tree and its nutrient needs... (sounds as if someone loses, it won't be the maples?! ;)

But I would hate, hate, HATE to lose these trees before their time. They are magnificent specimens, and keep the house a good 15-20 degrees cooler in summer than it would be otherwise. (Though I am AMAZED that the one in front of the house was planted so close to the well -- not even 20 feet from it!)

But it sounds as if I should ditch the landscape designer who wanted to surround the trees with hardy azaleas... I couldn't imagine at the time how he would get holes dug around all those roots, but he assured me it was "no problem" ;)

But it sounds as if I should ditch the landscape designer who wanted to surround the trees with hardy azaleas... I couldn't imagine at the time how he would get holes dug around all those roots, but he assured me it was "no problem" ;)

A decent chunk of my old landscape design business was cleaning up after "landscape designers". You can do azaleas if you put in raised mounds, and I'm a big azalea fan so if you want it bad enough it can be done. No planting in the ground, as the root competition will negatively impact azaleas. But there's a good chance the maple roots will find their way into your mounds as well, but that'll likely be several years.

Dan

Yep....like Ken says, I have ferns and moss growing under my biggest maple. Dryopteris (spinulose, I think) and western sword ferns. I also have a nice lilac about five feet from the maple, with a western exposure. And I have star jasmine vining into the maple tree, too.

Gradually, I'm getting rid of the lawn area, since 'grass' is verboten in California these days.

Josh

Exuberant dogs and moss gardens are not very compatible at least until the moss is firmly established, but there are ways to keep dogs off them. Black plastic mesh sold as deer protection can be staked a few inches above the moss. Animals avoid stepping on the mesh and its black color is nearly invisible. George Schenk wrote a book on moss gardening some years ago which is really eye-opening and inspirational. The big drawback to moss is the weeding; moss provides the ideal germination site for the seeds of absolutely everything. Hand weeding relatively small areas is not overwhelmingly difficult a few times a year and moss is a beautiful and serene addition to any landscape especially one with exposed tree roots - check out the pictures of some of the Japanese temple gardens. Moss also can't be allowed to dry out; once established, though, moss has remakable powers of rejuvenation even after turning brown and going dormant.

Rhododendrons and azaleas are able to hold their own in the rooty environment near maples. Their own densely fibrous and shallow root systems are well adapted to intense competition. They will not, however, bloom very well if the maples cast dense shade and will require faithful watering. Trees act like giant umbrellas, keeping rainfall away from the area beneath. The roots also draw up incredible amounts of water.

I doubt there is anything short of drenching with herbicide that you could do to the area under your trees that would adversely effect their health, so experiment with what works and looks good to you.

Can you mulch this area and add pots and seating to enjoy it that way? There are quite a number of plants that will grow in pots in shade, both those with interesting foliage and those whose main interest is flowering. An organic mulch should reduce the mud issue (though some kinds may be attracted to the dog's feet or fur) and a saucer or brick or three under your pots of plants will prevent maple roots from invading the soil in the pots. I tend to try to avoid digging under established trees - probably over-caution on my part - both for the tree's sake and due to the difficulty of establishing new plants under established trees.

the neighbor had to have his septic redone ... most likely due to the 6 huge silver maples that ring his lot ...

here is a pic from the excavation
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maples are super competitors .. period ... grass is the most invasive weed in the world.. i mean really .. it will grow in cracks in the pavement .....and if a given tree can defeat it... and based on the picture.. you should understand that only something as vigorous must be planted near them ....

in the alternative.. that which is the least demanding of such things as water... food.. and even... again.. based on the picture.. soil ...

azalea and rhodies.. in my area.. need high organic soil.. that stay relatively damp ... you will NEVER find that under a mature maple ...

think about a nice mulched area.. with a bench.. and lots of pots ....

good luck

ken

PS: if the plants.. like azalea.. had been planted... when the maple had been planted.. then perhaps they could achieve some symbiotic arrangement .... like the flowering understory trees you might find in a forest ... but you cant start thinking you can create that yourself... 50 years after the maple claimed its territory ...

Wow, Ken! (What is the blue and white thing??) I don't actually know what kind of maple I have (though I don't think the bark looks like the silver one above -- I'll post a photo of the tree and maybe someone can tell me?) I'm really surprised the tree hasn't posed any problems for our well -- which you can just see on the left, with its newly-raised casing (we recently had to replace the pump and they ran new pipe and raised, per code, the casing to be above ground since it was below ground in what I think is called a well pit before, which is no longer permitted).

Here is the tree:

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And the roots:

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And here is the setting ... you can see there is a bit of slope, and the tree is very near the house. I suspect I could create enough pockets of soil (without covering all the roots) to tuck in ferns or hostas, then fill around with a loose mulch (does it matter what kind? bark chunks or shredded? I know I shouldn't get the mulch over the root crown).

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My biggest problem is that I have to incorporate some way for both the dog and us to get around the house to the side and back yard area. I don't want yet another bluestone path (the one at the bottom of the last photo curves a bit more and ends at the front door), so I'm thinking maybe just a bark chip/mulch path?

As a question: I have used a local farm's organic compost to create gardens behind this house where there were none. It is FANTASTIC stuff and I have earthworms like you wouldn't believe after a couple of years. He also sells a mix that is half compost, half mulch which he suggests for topdressing beds because the compost "works down" to enrich soil and you're left with mulch on top. Would something like that work over these tree roots or is that too soil-like?

Thanks -- I really appreciate all the thoughts. This is a "difficult" site.... though I imagine many folks have tougher ones to deal with so I probably shouldn't be complaining... at least my septic field is way out in an open meadow behind the barn. Not a maple anywhere near it! :)

the blue and white thing is the hat off my head for scale ...

so that is about 8 to 12 inches of roots ... and barely a single one deeper .... pure yellow sand ...

ken

Maybe pictures of maple leaves would help?

Or google for pictures of silver,norway,red and sugar maples.

There are a few maples that are relatively non-aggressive type such as Japanese, Trident, Paperbark and Shantung maple. At least that's what I've seen at this small arboretum in Ft Worth, Texas that are surrounded by azalea plants. I looked for surface roots from shantung maple in sandy soil and didn't find them. I had to literally dig to find it. That's 25 feet shantung maple.

Here is a link that might be useful: Metro Maples Arboretum

i would bet a buck.. that if you put a foot of soil over the whole area.. by fall.. you would already see the roots back on top ..

frankly ... you have to make a decision as to whether the tree is all that important ... i dont have time to re-read the facts ... i think you like its shade on the house.. etc ... i understand that ....

i personally ... would not want the front of my house to look like this.. regardless of the shade this tree provides ... i would harvest the fire wood and the chipped product.. and move on to bigger and better things ...

an oak .. and a majority of other trees.. would NEVER do this... in your lifetime anyway ... lol ... i would consider two trees out near the edge of the canopy ... thinking of them as replacements.. so that in 5 years .. i could be rid of this one ...

if the well is out front.. shall i presume the septic, if any, is out back ??? i wouldnt have a maple within 50 to 100 feet of the septic ...

even if you could get a shovel into that soil ... consider that every root you sever ... will be replaced by dozens of NEW feeder roots ... IMHO .. pots are your only option.. and if the pots are on the ground.. and watered daily .. the maple will grow into the pots... so you will have to move the pots once a month or so ...

the only alternative i can think of.. is a bunch of railroad ties [retaining wall is out, since the roots will not allow for level placement] .... outlining the area .. and a good 4 to 6 inches of hardwood chips .. to create a surface for a sitting area.. upon which you can grow some nice landscape plants in pots ...

i am stymied.. i hope you can come up with a better plan ....

good luck

ken

PS: i am curious out across the road.. the retaining fence and the ground falls away ... is there a view ...

Nothing wrong with leaf mulch. You wuld have had some anyway except maybe the wind blew them away. I have muclhed my mature maples with other people's leaves and managed to get some mayapples to take hold. I kind of doubt they'll ever really spread, though. Moss didn't make it under my trees!

But it sounds as if I should ditch the landscape designer who wanted to surround the trees with hardy azaleas...

Ummm....yes. You could not possibly keep them watered in July when the trees get really thirsty!

Ken said, "i would bet a buck.. that if you put a foot of soil over the whole area.. by fall.. you would already see the roots back on top .."

I would definitely agree that you will most likely have roots throughout any added soil by the end of the season, though you might not be able to see them. I had a large pot (1/2 whiskey barrel) of plants sitting on the ground under a red maple and after 3 years there were maple roots right up to the surface. After I finally managed to detach the pot from the ground and cleaned out the roots, I placed it on something to keep it from directly contacting the ground. I have a raised bed garden about 10 feet outside of the dripline of the same maple and it also is filled with roots after about 5 years. The plants that have survived the root invasion are bulbs and herbs that were already established.

Here are some more pics to give context (and to make clear it doesn't always look as awful as it does right now... but we've definitely got more mud, etc. than in previous springs... maybe grass/moss will fill in better than I think based on the mud and roots I'm looking at right now?) As you'll see from the photos (many in the very kind late afternoon light), there WAS some grass -- mostly junk stuff but green, nonetheless -- last spring (these photos were taken in late May), so I may get that again this year. But if you were up close and personal, you'd see mostly roots, with tufts of grass sprinkled about.

So what I think you all are saying is ... live with it. Put a bench, maybe tuck some ferns, spread some mulch (how about that 50/50 compost-mulch blend the local farmer offers?)

Or take the tree down, which we'll do when we have to but NOT until. It is spectacular in the autumn! And home to many birds, source of shade, generally an asset (except for those roots). Surprisingly not a problem for the well -- and Ken, the septic field is out in the meadow, behind the barn. Probably several thousand feet from this tree (whew!!)

So here are pics, so you'll know it's actually a gorgeous setting despite the dreary winter-devastation pictures!

Ken, here's the view past that split-rail fence and the road, to the house across from us. The trunk you can see is the culprit maple in our front yard...the "view" is lovely (that hazy golden light behind her house is an 8-acre meadow). I'm having trouble visualizing a bench in the front yard but I suppose there's no reason not to have one -- we have cedar benches in the butterfly garden and on the patio in back.

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And this shot shows the area around the tree last May:
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Also, I should say that we have ... anticipating we will lose these trees eventually ... already planted a young Acer rubrum "Red Sunset" and an Acer triflorum, both from the NW Conservation District sale, at some distance from the existing trees (on the edge of the meadow and "upslope" between the drive and the street). Hope they will do well (not sure it's a good location for the triflorum but I think it doesn't get as large as most maples?)

Thanks all for the thoughts and ideas ... when I look out there right now, it is so depressing, but when I look at these photos from last May, I know that GREEN will help a lot!! (We are still experimenting with the front beds, which were filled, when we bought the house 4 years ago, with "deer candy" that we removed. Because it's so dry under that house overhang, it's been a devil to find anything that's deer-resistant that will grow in dry shade. So far the hostas and leucanthoe have weathered it. The andromeda not so well. A work in progress...!

Lose the trees? But they're just babies! I think they're lovely - try the mayapples or maybe solomon seal.

You could spend money on mulch, or you could stop a passing tree trimmer's truck this spring or a leaf vacuum truck next fall....

Groundcover Ivy grows very well around by mom's Silver Maples in Ohio, and could cover a lot of the lawn area around teh trees if you wanted in a couple of years. Low maint. and hardy.

Be hard to get started in the worst, hardest, root filled areas, but you could plant around and encourage the Ivy to spread to and cover the bare spots.

Noki - I'd thought about ivy. We had a lot of English ivy at our old house and except for a bout with some kind of blight one year (when it turned yellow and died out in large areas), it was a great groundcover and stood up to kids and dogs (no kids now, but still a large dog so it might be worth a try). My golden retrievers used to just camp out in the ivy beds.

There is also, as suggested above, pachysandra (which I wish I liked more, as there's a small "bed" of it on the property, down in the woods, where it looks as if it must have been pulled out from a bed at some point and dumped there -- so I have a free supply and could try it out for free ... not sure why I don't like the stuff -- maybe I just saw it overused so terribly in previous neighborhoods? Every big tree had a bed of pachysandra under it!)

Leslies ... I love the trees, too. And the fall color is incredible. I actually have solomon seal in the woods around us since it's native. I haven't had much luck transplating it to my garden (have tried in another area) but it would be lovely mixed in with hostas if I can get either to grow under these trees. I am thinking I need to just experiment with some things this year.

Does anyone have an opinion about "topdressing" this area with my local guy's 50-50 blend of organic compost and mulch? Just to give a thin layer to plunk some shallow-rooted groundcovers or the hostas (which will grow on TOP of the ground if they have to in my experience) in more easily? It's presumably more porous (in terms of letting the tree roots "breathe") than straight compost so I wonder if I could use that, putting a thin layer (maybe 1-2 inches) on this area, then putting straight mulch or bark chips on top of that, but plugging in some groundcover babies or else the hosta or fern divisions, just to see what -- if anything -- takes. I think it would at least look decent with the mulch on top (at least we'd be rid of the mud we now have when it's wet). Would that hurt the tree roots? (Sounds as if they're pretty tough customers but I certainly don't want to harm them...)

English Ivy is horrible for stormwater runoff, and I'd recommend against it. And it'll crawl up the tree and strangle it (sez the urban ecology guy).

If you can afford topdressing in this economy, more power to ya. That maple will take all the water you apply. Here on the Front Range, we are dealing - now - with the bad choice of planting these trees throughout the city during a particular period of development (they are discouraged if not outright banned across most of the Front Range). We have a spectacular failure near our house that likely will prompt us to go out and take fotos of for later teaching opportunities....

Dan

Hi Ctlady, your trees look to me like Acer saccharum, Sugar maples, lovely specimens in the age range of about 75+ years. This species has striking fall color in the golden-orange-red range. From what I've read and observed, the root zones of Sugar maples are sensitive compared to other maple species and generally intolerant of disturbance, compaction, and salt.

Your trees look to me like they are in dire need of some mulch. I would do that after a soaking rain and possibly start with a layer of cardboard or newspaper (which you can wet down), then 1-2 inches of compost, and topped with an inch or so of bark mulch or wood chips. The paper layer will prohibit weed growth for approx 1 year and the organic layers help to even the grade and build the soil in between the roots. Topdress with mulch each year or let the leaves lay as mulch.

I would avoid planting any large shrubbery or disturbing the roots much at this point, perhaps planting a few smaller shrub seedlings and perennials in between the root. Placing some pots or a bench underneath the trees would look pretty.

This is my 50 year old Sugar maple and nearby garden which I generally try to keep back away from the main root zone of the tree. I love the way the fallen leaves look - like a colorful carpet. In the background is a large Silver maple.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Acer saccharum, Sugar Maple

i have a little experience with hosta .... the main ingredient for success is WATER .... the maple will win ... there might be 2 or 300 post about hosta under maple in the hosta forum ... i think there is one person who claims its no problem... lol ...

top dress away if you want ... but all you will be doing is feeding the maple... EVERY hole you dig for a plant... into which you put improved soil.. will be infilled with new feeder roots from the maple.. a lot faster than the plant can get established ,,,

if you are going to try to plant things .... dig hole... remove roots from the ssoil dug ... plant with the native soil returned... always broadcast water.. and always broadcast fert, if it is really necessary ...

my first try involved doing the 50$ hole for the 10$ plant... dig giant hole.. improve the soil in that hole.. plus add fert for the plant .. and then walk around and water the holes/plants by hand.... and in two years.. the plant was gone.. and the hole filled with maple.. where exactly is the tree going to find fresh soil, fertilizer and water.. where you put it i guess ....

all this is not meant to say not to try ... just try to fool the maple so the plants can get established... and you will succeed... with the caveat that proper plant selection is imperative ...

ken

I had a large Norway maple in my garden in Connecticut. I successfully grew hosta, epimedium and fern underneath it.

I agree, though, that Sugar maple is more finicky about soil disturbance than Norway. Sugar maples are under stress in many areas, and some places they are losing out.