MRH64

Hello Mark, Thanks for your response, agree with your opinion, sounds like good common sense to me. Regards Mark

Hello Jonny, thanks very much for your comments, most welcome. Having reflected on this perhaps it's obvious that the side of the proposed garage that faces the new sapling, if placed within the potential root spread of the Cypress when it becomes mature (in say 30 years), would in effect act the same as a commercially available root barrier. How limiting this would be in reality to the welfare of the tree depends of course on the proximity of one to the other and the depth of the garage foundations. My belief, please tell me if I'm incorrect, is that over the time that a sapling grows into a mature tree, it would be much more tolerant and accommodating of a barrier that is located say 1 metre off the perimeter of the known root spread for a Cypress (I think this is circa 5 meters), than for the case where a barrier is similarly located but fir a pre-existing mature tree. To try to put this more succinctly, placing foundations 4 metres out from a newly planted sapling Cypress will probably have no affect on its welfare, even if the guidelines state 5 metres for root spread, as these are written to prevent damage to roots of mature trees. I suspect is all a matter of degree, hence the simplest thing is to apply the guideline irrespective of the age of the tree, but I wondered if anyone had any experience of this rule being applied less stringently when a sapling is being planted, particularly in this case to replace a TPO tree.

I have a TPO to fell and replace a dying Cypress, not such an issue except the adjacent land is being considered for build of a garage and the potential root spread for a fully grown Cypress would likely inhibit this. However a potential solution is for a root barrier to be placed between the proposed garage and 3 meters from the replacement "Sapling". This distance is within that for a mature Cypress, but for a growing one I do not anticipate it would cause any issues? I would appreciate any thoughts and advice on this, especially if there has been any similar work linked to TPOs. Kind regards MRH64