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Saw a dying oak in downtown Asheville that made me rethink root compaction
I was in Asheville last weekend for a job and walked past this big old oak on Patton Avenue. Looked healthy from 20 feet but up close it had thin leaves and bark splitting near the base. Pretty sure the sidewalk being too close and that new brick paver job sealed its fate. Anyone else running into more compacted soil issues on urban trees lately?
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adam_hernandez7d ago
Yeah that sidewalk thing is brutal. I had a similar situation with a maple in my front yard a couple years back. The previous owners put in a concrete path right over the root zone and the tree was barely hanging on. I ended up renting an air spade from a local tool library and spent a weekend carefully loosening the soil around the base. Then I mixed in some compost and put down a thick layer of wood chips over the whole area. It took about a year but the tree started putting out new growth and the leaves got bigger. The bark splitting stopped spreading too. Not a perfect fix but it gave that oak a fighting chance. Sometimes you just gotta give the roots some room to breathe.
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