When building a house, tree preservation is going to be a key aspect in the overall outcome of your homes appearance, value, and landscape beauty. It is ideal to keep as many trees on your lot as possible. If I were to estimate the value of a full grown tree, it would be from $2000 to $5000 value added to the home, per tree. This is for city areas. Obviously on a 16 acre homesite in the country, with 100 trees remaining on the lot, will not bring the same value. But this is just for open discussion purposes anyways. So moving on…
After you have started the process of building your home, you have arrived at the construction time frame where you will begin to prepare the lot for foundation placement. If efforts at tree preservation are delayed or ignored until construction beings (and while construction endures), the trees are largely doomed to failure. Wooded lots must be thoroughly evaluated prior to the commencement of building your own home, and you must identify which trees you wish to keep, if possible. Remember, all trees cannot, and should not, be preserved. A realistic tree preservation approach acknowledges that conflicts between trees and development may sometimes result in the removal of some trees and recognizes the detrimental effect to the project when trees die after construction is complete. Tree removal is to be accomplished prior to the stage of Lot Scrape (removing all vegetation from the ground for foundation placement)
Roots anchor the tree and supply the crown with water and mineral elements absorbed from the soil. Their continued function is an important factor in a tree’s survival during construction. In many ways, tree preservation is root system preservation. The best tree retention effort is doomed to failure if root protection is not emphasized during construction. Grading, construction, utility installation, and other development impacts will in some way reduce the ability of roots to grow and function. Everyone involved in the construction process must recognize the basic conflict between manipulating the soil structure for buildings and preserving that structure for tree roots. The root system must be protected.
