KEEPING ONE MONTROSE TREE IN RESERVE 
The developer of those spur-side homes planned for this Westmoreland lot between Marshall and W. Alabama St. says that the old live oak shown in the photo isn’t going anywhere. In fact, Arpan Gupta tells Swamplot that a 1,410-sq.-ft. reserve area — as one commenter notes on the site plan — is being established around the tree’s “drip line” to set aside a park that not just the homeowners will be allowed to use. Additionally, explains Gupta, architecture firm Knudson and tree service Arbor Care have both been employed to take protective measures — mulching, fertilizing, fencing, etc. — during the “stress of construction.” [Previously on Swamplot] Photo: Allyn West
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Excellent news. Kudos to the developer for being a good guy.
Hopefully Arbor Care will inform the owner of the property that “…on average, tree roots spread close to 3 times the spread of the branches, so that a tree with an 8-foot branch crown spread would have a 24-foot root spread diameter.” If this tree is to survive the long term much better protection standards will need to be instituted. Imagine a wine glass in the center of a dinner plate. The oak tree is the wine glass and its root system is the dinner plate. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/wo017
Awesome. I hope it works out.
@tcpIV – I’ve read in MANY places that Live Oaks are very tolerant of nearby construction, relative to other trees. So, hopefully, they can pull this off without killing the tree. Below is a link to one, of many sources, that mentions how good Live Oaks are regarding nearby construction.
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Live-Oak_vq907.htm
@Walt – agreed. I work with them all the time. Problems arise when the construction fences come down and the protected area becomes compacted. The issue here is the combination of adjacent construction and root reduction of probably 50%.
Mr.Gupta (dba Carnegie Homes&Construction) is building 4-FOUR story- new TH’s down the street-on the site of old the Beauty Shop Murder house,1700 block of Welch- and thankfully is keeping the big old oak tree in front of the property. Hopefully that tree and the oak tree featured in this story will thrive and live long lives.
I am one of the people who “use” this park a lot. We knew it wasn’t going to last forever, too prime of space. That tree is huge and wonderful place for shade. I am glad they will keep it. It will make the place better. There are some other good live oaks on Westmoreland as well.
As far as having the cement spur in your back yard, I can’t imagine it being that bad. You can play tennis off of it, have your own baseball game (I used the side of our house growing up) or (if they don’t catch you) put up a basketball hoop.
Makes it a cozy little area. It’s what? 3 stories tall??? It will cut the Houston sun too. I kind of like the idea of having it.
Well, I’m glad for any effort; it’s more space and effort than I usually see reserved for old live oaks.
I’ll be sad to see this go, but as mentioned earlier, I knew the day had to come sometime. The land is way way too valuable to sit there empty. It would be great if it was bought by the city as a park or something but the chance of that happening would have been small.