Native Plants

Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

Help us grow by giving to the Plant Database Fund or by becoming a member

Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Search Smarty Plants

See a list of all Smarty Plants questions

Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

Need help with plant identification, visit the plant identification page.

rate this answer

Not Yet Rated

Monday - March 11, 2013

From: Washington, MO
Region: Midwest
Topic: Erosion Control, Trees
Title: Further explanation of retaining walls and trees from Washington MO
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

I had a question previously about putting retaining walls across the root system of a 40' tall bald cypress tree(not like spokes on a wheel, but concentric to tree trunk). How wide can the walls be? How deep can the dirt backfill behind the walls be? How far away from the trunk should the walls stay? I am only asking how to minimize stress to the tree, not how to engineer it. My choice of words gave you the wrong direction to proceed with your answer. Please address only the plant/tree issue for me.

ANSWER:

Sorry we got so wrapped up in the rain garden issue we forgot the tree root issue. In fact, we had a reference to tree wells in our original answer and removed it because the answer got so long. For anyone interested in seeing how we goofed up, here is your previous Mr. Smarty Plants question.

Basically what you are asking about is Tree Wells. This article, we believe, actually addresses the questions you have, and much better than this mathematics-challenged gardener could. It has diagrams, a discussion of grade changes, the distance a wall should be from a tree trunk, weep holes, etc. Since you can actually see your tree, the incline and soil type, hopefully this will answer all the questions we did not.