digger around trees

I have a need to do some 'un-grading' in my garden. The people before me wrecked the garden with landscaping, landscape fabric and gravel. I've been pulling the fabric and gravel (back-breaking work) to reveal strange ridges in the soil beneath. Hard to see why and hard to explain but the image below gives an idea of the worst of it.

I need to even out the land, to make it usable. This makes for very uneven footing.

I am also looking to create a very slight tilth, in order to sow what will be predominantly, a wild meadow surrounded by food bushes. However, there are a couple of trees in this space, that I do not want to damage the roots of. I can see a lot of roots on the surface, which I do not if I can dig around with little concern, or if roots this close to the surface mean I cannot do any initial earthworks, even just creating a tilth. I think they are so close to the surface as to now, they have been covered in weed matting for at least 30 years.

So I suppose I am looking for some assurance that this is doable. I have an operative with a delicate touch and a digger, able to come and help me with this project. He will do the heavy lifting as it were - and from there I can get seeding.

I have priced building the soil up, rather than bringing in a digger, but it is several times more than I have. Also wildflowers and meadows need poor soil which you can probably see - this is. I am working with what I have to the best of my ability.

Putting financials aside - building up would mean I would have to wait until the end of the year as soils and mulches are now next to impossible to find here in the UK, or at least in my area.

Any thoughts appreciated or reassurances that scraping some surface roots will not wreck the trees.

If you can get free wood chips from a tree service, you can level the area with them.  You'll get your level soil, and you will improve your soil more than you can believe possible.  And with no damage, only benefits, to everything growing there.

Trace Oswald wrote:If you can get free wood chips from a tree service, you can level the area with them.  You'll get your level soil, and you will improve your soil more than you can believe possible.  And with no damage, only benefits, to everything growing there.

Hi Trace - thanks.

That has been the answer to a lot of questions I've asked here but woodchips are much, much harder to get ahold of in the UK. We do not have a chip drop, nor do we have much tree cover in some parts of the country. We cleared most of our woodland centuries ago. I've spoken with every arborist in a 25 mile radius and the conversation is either 'no thanks mate' or 'why would you even call me about woodchips?' It's been an ordeal trying to find woodchips and I've generally failed.

Creating level would mean over 32 cubic yards of material, which I just cannot afford to acquire.

It looks like it needs more soil to cover that dirt.  I hate landscaping fabric.

I wonder if bonsai information would work?  They talk about trimming roots and then trimming the top to match.  Fancy ratios and stuff, but it might be somewhere to start.  

Out of curiosity, do you live somewhere that gets regular drought or heavy rains?  I wonder if they terraced it to reduce erosion?  

Let us know how it goes.

I feel for you.  The same sort of "landscaping" was done in my yard with rocks and landscaping fabric. And when I pulled that stuff up the ground beneath it has no humus in it so it's quite poor.  I am a year into that project and it's not completed.
I am afraid that I think you will probably kill the trees if you try to create a tilth around them with a digger.  Most of a tree's roots are in the top 6 inches of soil and they spread out far wider than you would think. And, although you not planning to do it, burying the top of soil too deeply can suffocate the roots.
So can you rethink your project?  Maybe you can sacrifice the trees...and replant food trees? Maybe you can just level the rough edges without leveling the whole area? Or maybe consider very carefully the plants you will put in the meadow becaause maybe you can find ones that can survive without being put in tilled soil?
I am planting a meadow garden for pollinators and the ground is hard as a rock in this area in some places (it's hardpan).  I am planting native grasses and native pollinator-loving, drought-tolerant flowering plants.  I know these plants can survive in this soil because I pulled out a lot of non-native grasses and non-native flowering plants that had created deep taproots (biennials and perennials). Where I am putting a plant that has to have tilled ground (like bulbs) and I can't dig in the area, I just mound up some dirt for it on top of the dirt that's there.  
Best of luck!

Jen Swanson wrote:I feel for you.  The same sort of "landscaping" was done in my yard with rocks and landscaping fabric. And when I pulled that stuff up the ground beneath it has no humus in it so it's quite poor.  I am a year into that project and it's not completed.
I am afraid that I think you will probably kill the trees if you try to create a tilth around them with a digger.  Most of a tree's roots are in the top 6 inches of soil and they spread out far wider than you would think. And, although you not planning to do it, burying the top of soil too deeply can suffocate the roots.
So can you rethink your project?  Maybe you can sacrifice the trees...and replant food trees? Maybe you can just level the rough edges without leveling the whole area? Or maybe consider very carefully the plants you will put in the meadow becaause maybe you can find ones that can survive without being put in tilled soil?
I am planting a meadow garden for pollinators and the ground is hard as a rock in this area in some places (it's hardpan).  I am planting native grasses and native pollinator-loving, drought-tolerant flowering plants.  I know these plants can survive in this soil because I pulled out a lot of non-native grasses and non-native flowering plants that had created deep taproots (biennials and perennials). Where I am putting a plant that has to have tilled ground (like bulbs) and I can't dig in the area, I just mound up some dirt for it on top of the dirt that's there.  
Best of luck!

Thanks for relaying your experience, Jen. The poor quality here is part of my reasoning for turning it into a meadow at this point. Doing this gives me a chance to build soil slowly, as well as have a utility space as it matures - somewhere for my kids to play and for us to sit, all while increasing biodiversity and habitat.

I've checked the soil overnight here and to my surprise, this appears to be extremely silty. I guess it makes sense as we are very near a river, but I had assumed it to be clay as that is what is apparent in other parts of the garden.

Fair point on the consideration, and I have a couple of spots around the weed matting, with organic matter that I can use to create a very thin tilth on top. I also have an absolutely huge volume of sand. Maybe I could employ this as well. Very poor soil + a small amount of organic matter + sand = maybe just enough of a surface for planting into and I can build the soil under my feet a little more slowly.

I would really doubt you will kill the trees by removing some of the roots near the surface they probably won't like you for a bit but they will live. How hard is that soil? I think I would be inclined to chip the edges off with a space or even a rake if it's softer and even it out that way. you could hire a small rotovator to make a shallow tilth or get some compost from the tip and just spread a cm or so over the area to sow into, it would need plenty of water until things establish. Though looking at the flowers on motorway cuttings the seeds are not very fussy!

Hi again.  A word of caution on the sand. If the soil has a lot of clay in it, adding sand will actually make it eventually turn into something like cement.  I know...I was super surprised to learn this myself.  Have you tried doing one of those soil tests with your hands, some soil and some water to determine the soil texture? (I think it's called a ribbon test?)