Collection: Construction hurts your trees. Deblen can help!

Building a new home? New landscaping project? Adding on to your cabin? Your Minnesota yard isn't complete without it's towering Pines, Birch, Maples, and Oak trees. Keeping them alive and beautiful adds to the aesthetic and value of your home. Without them it just wouldn't be the same.

Deblen has developed a one-of-a-kind treatment program to repair and rebuild damaged trees. What damages trees?

All types of above ground work causes damage below the surface which is where the roots of your trees reside. This section explains what is happening to your trees, and what Deblen can do to prevent your trees from dying after the project is complete.

Compaction: This happens on the surface of the ground with any repetitive or heavy traffic. This can include foot traffic, mowers, bicycles, cars, skidsteers, loaders, dump trucks, etc. One inch of compaction can affect the soil density as far as 6 feet down depending on soil type. This smashes new soft root hairs, kills mycillium, breaks mature roots, and starves the roots of carbon/oxygen flow. 

Trenching: This causes permanent damage by severing whatever roots are in the path of the trench. 

Backfilling and/or adding new topography: This changes the shape of your yard surface, which adds to the beauty of your yard. This also kills the original soil by choking it under tons of heavy dirt, sand, fill brought in from other areas or the existing site. Any roots under this new depth of soil have less carbon/oxygen exchange, effectlively suffocating the tree and the soil. Imagine a tree has grown with a root depth of 6" its whole life, and suddenly it is under 6 feet of new dirt. That's a shock! If the soil suffocates, the valuable microbes and life giving fungus die. Since these are how the tree eats, after this damage the tree starves.

Excavation: Huge holes are dug around trees to lay foundations and basements. Some trees lose 1/2 or more of their root systems after this damage.

Landscaping: New dirt is usually brought in to make flower beds, and sidewalks. Pavers, lighting, irrigation all require tearing up the ground in some way, shape, or form. This all causes root damage.

Piles of dirt and demolition debri: Tons of dirt and concrete over tree roots choke the tree and compact the soil. Sometimes these piles sit for months. Ever lay on your arm and it falls asleep? Imagine how your tree feels!

Construction damage to roots is like a car accident for a man where he has broken bones and internal injuries. Imagine bringing the hurt patient to the hospital and the doctors only bathe him, dress him in new clothes, and give him a haircut. The doctor says "You look better now than how you looked before the accident I'd wager, you are going to be fine!" and discharges him. The man's long term health and even life are definitely at risk.

That logic is rediculous, but it's no different than what happens after a house is built and the tree roots are destroyed. The builder brings in new dirt, new trees, landscaping, new lawn, lighting, trims the trees and says: "These trees look better now than they did before we built this house, they are going to be fine!", the trees may look good for a year or two but eventually they will begin to decline and it's likely they will die from disease or root death. The sad reality is that this happens with all construction, but if they don't know about Deblen, they have no options. Builders do their best with what they have.

Deblen can repair the hurt roots by regenerating the new soil, fracturing and aerating the compacted soil, triggering aggressive root growth each year through specific nutrition, and making the trees grow in spite of the damage done. A damaged tree typically needs 2 treatments per year for 5 years. Well worth the effort and investment if the tree is saved.

Ideally, when Deblen is able to consult with the builder ahead of time, we can suggest which trees are not saveable, where vulnerable roots are, and we are actually able to prep the tree roots before they are cut. If the trees are already in high gear mode before ground is broken, they are already building roots aggressively, this means when the damage starts the trees are at top level performance ready to go to work. 

Even during or after damage, we can be reactive two to three years after it takes place, but realize that less of the tree will be saveable, and it may be impossible to save the trees if the roots have given up. We just do not know until we try. In any case, the sooner the better...it's a 911 situation.

In any scenario, Deblen is the only company that has our high success rate with saving damaged trees. We know what is best for your trees.