If storm water seems to flow toward the trees along your walking paths or the trees in the median in the middle of the road, the water may end up sitting on exposed tree roots or surrounding the base of the tree. If this happens on a regular basis, the wood could rot and the tree could suffer damage. Luckily, as a city manager or anyone else charged with the care of trees, there are things you can do. Take a look at these tips:

1. Clean out the storm drains.

One of the most straightforward and potentially most effective things you can do if you have water pooling near trees is to check the nearby drainage system. Ideally, water should not be pooling on the side of the road or on the median. Instead, it should flow through the storm drain into your water ways.

Investigate why this is not happening. Clean the drains if they are clogged, and if they are simply overwhelmed, consider replacing the existing pipes with new, larger ones.

2. Increase the kerb heights.

If the storm drains are clean and clear, you may want to consider raising the kerb height of the patch of ground the trees are planted in. Kerbs catch rain water as it flows off the road, and they help corral the water to the storm drains. If the kerbs are too low, it may allow too much water to pass over the kerbs and onto the area near the trees.

3. Work with a tree specialist to increase the amount of soil around the trees.

If you cannot reduce the amount of rainwater that comes toward the trees, you may want to partially bury some of the exposed tree roots or the base of the tree. If there is more soil there, the water will be more likely to be absorbed into the soil rather than sit around the tree. Additionally, the soil protects the tree from standing water, making the tree bark less likely to rot or get moldy.

However, this has to be done very carefully. If you just heap a bunch of soil over exposed roots and around the base of the tree, you can stifle the tree, causing it to potentially die. Instead, you need a tree specialist who can keep an eye on the health of the tree while while slowly and incrementally increasing the amount of soil around the tree.