The Garden
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Roots versus water main
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Roots versus water main
I am in the beginning stage of planning a small scale food forest in my front yard. I have a water line that comes in from the street right down the center of my yard. What kind of distance do I need from the pipe to keep my trees from tangling up with it? I’m only working with 1500 sqft of bed so placement is going to be critical.
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4 Replies
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It depends on the size of tree. For example the root zone of a tree will extend out as far as, or even a little further than the crown. So if the tree crown is 10 feet across then I would keep tree at least 6 feet away from the drain. (A ten foot crown diameter means a five foot radius plus a 1 foot buffer for six feet away.) If I were in this situation I would plant dwarf fruit trees. This is not official advice, just what I would do.
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Okay cool beans. I was figuring on finding some dwarfs. I’ll put the ones that will need more pruning toward the edges. Thanks for the input. My planning has been hinging on this bit of info at this point.
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You have gotten good advice from the water line but another area to be considered is sewer (if you have county/city line) and septic. Roots can wreak havoc on these as well. Same advice for them. Trust me replacing a sewer line from your house to the road gets exapensive.
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I have had to help my brother re-dig our leech lines twice. I am most definitely keeping that in mind! I’ve begrudgingly reduced my original number of trees just to make sure I’m plenty far from both.
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