This oak tree is planted only 3 feet from the foundation of the home. How far away should it have been planted?

Canopy tree shall mean a species of tree  that  which  normally grows to a mature height of  forty (40) feet or more.   (Florida ordinance)

Builders and developers are mandated by municipal building codes to plant a determined amount of canopy trees per property. The builder documents on submitted landscape plans where the trees are to be planted. The plan is approved. Why are builders allowed to plant canopy trees in the wrong location?

This oak tree, depending on the species, will grow 40’ to 60’ high and 60’ to 120’ wide. The tree in the photo above is planted 3’ from the foundation of the home. This very common practice is landscape malpractice to the ultimate degree. It puts the onus of the unknowing homeowner to pay for the cost to remove or transplant the tree to a proper location.

April 25th is National Arbor Day and everyone is encouraged to plant a tree. Please research to find out the mature width of your tree and plant it where it can grow to be its healthiest and live a long life.

Despite its cute little conical-shaped canopy, the oak tree above should be planted at least 30’ away from the home just like the oak trees in the background.

Who’s to blame? Whoever in the building code department who is signing off on the submitted landscape plans of new communities. They should know better - they write the rules.

Homeowner Associations (HOA’s) need to straighten their act out. It has been six months since the end of hurricane season, and you can still see the damage from tropical storm force winds. The frontage of this community has over 15 trees damaged by storm winds. This length of time and the new growth on these sadly leaning oak trees means that the trees have recovered from the storm and are being forced to live out their lives crooked. Not straightening these healthy trees means that eventually they will be expensively replaced (just from the HOA embarrassment of how they look – “Hey Joe, you know your trees are growing crooked?) and the initial hundreds of thousands of dollars landscape cost of purchasing the trees, installation, labor, irrigation, and maintenance afterwards will have been wasted.

After the storm, a certified arborist should have assessed the trees immediately to determine if they can be salvaged by root pruning and staking through the next hurricane season. That will help the trees survive to grow aesthetically healthy.

This situation should have been resolved earlier. Why hasn’t the landscape company that mows the property come forward to say that straightening the trees needs to happen? It is an opportunity for landscape maintenance companies to earn more money for repairing the landscape beds that they maintain. One week after the hurricane damage, those trees should have been straightened and followed up with an arborist’s oversight to see that they were okay. Cities and counties that impose stringent development regulations prior to a storm will be able to assess the damage in their communities following the storm. They can remind builders and HOAs that new development landscapes are affected and insist on timely corrective actions.

Even if cities do not straighten their own signs.