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Spent 4 hours on a 'dead' oak in Salem that just had girdling roots
The crown was thinning and I kept checking for borers before I finally dug down and found a root circling the trunk. Anyone got a faster way to spot girdling roots before you waste half a day?
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nina_clark25d ago
Root collar exams are the move here. Pop the soil away from the base with a hand trowel or even just a hose on low, go about 2 to 3 inches down all the way around the trunk, and you'll see those circling roots way faster than waiting on crown symptoms to point you there. Thinning crowns on oaks get blamed on borers and drought all the time when it's actually roots choking the trunk, so checking the flare should be step one before you start poking around for bugs. Also look for a trunk that goes straight into the ground like a telephone pole with no flare, that's a huge red flag for girdling roots. Loose soil helps too, if the tree was planted too deep or mulched heavy the roots stay shallow and circle instead of spreading out. Four hours is rough but at least you found the real problem before you treated for borers that weren't there.
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