#tree roots

Vincent van Gogh ❂ Tree Roots (1890)

There is a silver maple on my neighbor's side of our shared property line that has been sending roots under the fence and into my yard for as long as I've lived here. I noticed it the first spring, mostly because it kept lifting a section of my garden bed. I did not think much of it. By the third spring, it had lifted enough that I finally looked into what was actually going on and what, if anything, either of us could do about it.

What I learned changed how I thought about the whole situation, and honestly made the conversation with my neighbor a lot easier than I expected it to be.

What I Assumed vs. What Is Actually True

I assumed, like most people apparently do, that if a root crosses onto your property, you can just cut it. Turns out that is mostly true but comes with real caveats. Property owners generally do have the right to trim roots that cross the line, up to their own property boundary. What surprised me is that cutting a large structural root, even one technically on your side of the line, can still count as damaging a neighbor's tree if it destabilizes it or leads to its decline, and that can create real liability depending on how it is handled.

The Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station has extension material on this exact situation, and the short version is: know the size and location of the root relative to the trunk before doing anything, because a root close to a neighbor's tree trunk is a different conversation than one several feet out.

Why I Did Not Just Handle It Myself

My first instinct was to just cut the roots on my side and move on. What stopped me was reading that even roots technically on your own property can be structurally important to a neighbor's tree, and that a poorly planned cut could genuinely destabilize their maple. Given that the tree in question is a big, healthy shade tree that also happens to shade a good chunk of my own yard in summer, I did not love the idea of taking a unilateral risk with it just to save myself a conversation.

The International Society of Arboriculture has consumer-facing material on exactly this kind of shared-boundary root situation, and reading through it made clear this was not a situation where guessing was a good strategy.

The Conversation I Ended Up Having

I brought it up with my neighbor casually, not as a complaint, more as "hey, did you know your maple's roots are doing this on my side." She had noticed some lifting near her own patio too and had been meaning to look into it. We ended up getting one root assessment done together rather than each hiring someone separately, which felt like the more sensible way to handle a tree that neither of us fully "owned" the consequences of on our own.

The arborist who came out explained that the roots causing the most trouble on my side were far enough from the trunk that light pruning would not meaningfully affect the tree's stability. The ones closer to her patio needed a more careful approach, more limited cutting, paired with monitoring over the following year.

What We Actually Did

We split the cost of the assessment and the pruning work on my side, since that was what I was asking for. She handled the patio side separately with the same arborist, since that was specific to her property and her call to make.

The roots on my side got selectively pruned at a safe distance from her tree's trunk. My garden bed is no longer getting lifted. Her maple, as far as either of us can tell a year later, has not shown any signs of stress from the work.

What Surprised Me About the Cost Split

Going in, I expected the whole thing to turn into an argument about who pays for what. It did not, mostly because we approached the assessment itself as a shared, neutral fact-finding step before either of us had committed to a position. Once we both had the same information from the same arborist, the cost split for the actual pruning work followed pretty naturally from whose side benefited from which cut. I paid for the work on my side of the boundary. She paid for the work near her patio. Neither of us tried to push the shared assessment cost onto the other, since we had agreed up front to split that evenly regardless of what it found.

I think the reason this worked is that we treated the tree as a shared asset with a shared problem, rather than framing it as her tree causing me a problem. That framing shift made the whole conversation feel collaborative instead of adversarial, which mattered more than I expected going in.

What I Would Tell Anyone in the Same Situation

Do not assume you can just start cutting because a root crossed your fence line. Talk to your neighbor first, especially if the root is anything more than a minor nuisance. If the tree is healthy and valuable to them, and you handle it unilaterally in a way that damages it, that can genuinely become a dispute nobody wants. A shared assessment, even if you split the cost unevenly based on whose problem is whose, tends to produce a better outcome than either side acting alone.

Photo by Marco Machado on Pexels

How This Changed the Way I See Our Other Shared Trees

We have two other trees near shared property lines with different neighbors on the street, and this experience changed how I think about them. Instead of waiting for a visible problem to force the conversation, I have started mentioning, casually, when I notice something on a shared tree, even before it becomes an issue worth acting on. It costs nothing and it means nobody is caught off guard later by a problem that had actually been developing slowly and visibly for a while.

What I'd Do Differently Looking Back

Honestly, the only thing I would change is not waiting three years to look into it. I let the lifted garden bed annoy me for two full seasons before actually researching what my options were, mostly out of a vague worry that bringing it up with my neighbor would turn into an awkward conversation. It turned out to be a fifteen minute chat that she was relieved to have, since she had noticed her own patio issue and had not known where to start either. If you are sitting on a similar situation and putting off the conversation, that delay is probably costing you more than the conversation itself would.