The root flare depth thing I had backwards for a decade

I dug up a 12 year old maple last month that we planted when I first started doing tree work. It was buried a good 6 inches too deep, and the trunk was all rotten at the soil line. I always thought a deep hole meant stable roots, but after reading a bulletin from the Michigan State extension, it clicked. Turns out planting too deep suffocates the flare and invites decay, and it took that rotting maple for me to really believe it. Now I check the flare on every install and refuse to backfill over it. Anyone else find out about this the hard way, or did you catch it before the tree paid the price?

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williams.sage1mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah I made this exact mistake for years too. I planted a red oak back in 2015 and packed the soil right up around the trunk like I was building a mound. Looked great at first, nice and straight, no wobble. But three years later the bark started peeling off at the base and the tree just slowly gave up. When I dug it out you could see the flare was completely buried and the cambium had rotted out in a ring around the whole trunk. That was the moment I realized I was doing it wrong the whole time. Now I make a point of finding the first big root before I even put the tree in the hole, and I leave that root sitting right at grade level. It feels weird at first because the tree looks naked, but every single tree Ive planted that way is still healthy and growing strong.