Above ground, the American sweetgum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua) inspires as a majestic solitaire with furious autumn colors. What are its roots doing in the garden soil? This guide brings light into the darkness with useful information about root growth. This is how sweet gum roots can be removed.
Heart roots grow both in depth and in width
Herzwurzler Amberbaum - What does that mean?
In the profile it can be read that the sweetgum tree thrives as heart roots. This term describes a special root system that is reminiscent of a heart shape in cross section. These properties characterize the growth of sweetgum roots:
- Root growth in depth and width
- Dominant taproots reach several meters down to the groundwater
- Weaker lateral roots with expansion in crown width and beyond
With these roots, the sweetgum tree is in good company. Numerous deciduous trees have also opted for a central root system in the course of evolution because it promises an extra portion of stability. These include Norway maple (Acer platanoides), apple tree (Malus) or the popular trumpet tree (Catalpa bignonioides).
Remove sweetgum roots - how does it work?
In the hope of an Indian summer in the home garden, hobby gardeners plant the picturesque starfish tree, ignoring the impressive height of growth of up to 20 meters. Within a few years, the mighty treetop with a full 12 meters in diameter bursts the available space and the tree is felled. Now the question arises: how to remove sweetgum roots correctly? The following methods have proven themselves in practice:
- Manually: Dig up tree roots, saw them up, pull stump out of the ground with a winch
- Machine: Rent a stump grinder, sit on the wood, shred tree stump and roots
Sweetgum roots can be removed with natural means without muscle wax, but with a lot of patience. With this variant, you saw the tree stump a few centimeters deep like a chessboard. Drill holes in the roots. Fill the gaps and holes with a mixture of fresh compost and compost accelerator. Busy microorganisms then take care of the decomposition. The process progresses faster if you fill the openings in the wood two-thirds full with Epsom salt and seal with liquid candle wax.
tips
If sweetgum roots come dangerously close to a paved area, simply cut back overly long root strands. To avoid removing too much root mass, the minimum distance between the cut points and the tree should be eight times the diameter of the trunk. After root pruning, cut back the crown of the tree in proportion to the root mass removed.