Where the Root Meets the Road: Preventing Tree Root Damage to Hardscaping
Anyone who lives in Florida is aware of the damage tree roots can cause to streets, sidewalks and other hardscaping. Property Managers, HOA’s and homeowners are often caught flat footed when a problem arises due to tree roots. In addition, local city ordinances and laws prevent tree cutting to maintain a ‘green cover’, further complicating matters. Root-cutting is often the expeditious solution to alleviate the problem. In the long-term, this approach may result in tree instability or even tree death. This results in a conflict between the demands of infrastructure development and sustainable landscaping.
Preventing Root Damage
The University of Florida, IFAS Extension and Hillsborough County will address this issue through a webinar:
Where the Root Meets the Road: Preventing Tree Root Damage to Hardscaping
Date: April 7, 2022
Time: 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
Cost: $5
This presentation provides research based recommendations by Dr. Deborah Hilbert on how far a tree of any size should be planted from ground-level infrastructure to avoid damage to built infrastructure. This information will help property managers, engineers, landscape designers, planners, arborists, urban foresters, and others responsible for the management of urban trees and the built environment to make informed decisions about the space needed by trees to prevent damage to infrastructure.
Participants will step away with an understanding of:
- How and why conflict happens between trees and nearby hardscapes.
- Recent research conducted in Tampa by scientists to determine how large the “footprint” of a tree is and the resulting tree planting space equations
- How to use these equations and simplified tree planting distance tables (found in a free IFAS publication) to make informed tree planting and design decisions.
Registration
https://preventing-tree-root-damage-to-hardscaping.eventbrite.com
This webinar has been approved for by FL DBPR for 1.75 Landscape Architect CEU’s; by APA Florida for 1.5 CM’s; and ISA for 1.5 Certified-Municipal-BCMA Management Arborist CEU’s.
