Insidious Cedar Roots

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the cedar is an important tree.  Tall, majestic and long-lived, the cedar provides superior wood which is light and resistant to rotting.  It's the tree of choice for the long native dugout canoes.  It's not, however, the friend of the gardener!  Cedar and maple roots are always searching for water sources and these two trees are the main reason we went to concrete raised beds.

Today I was preparing a bed for this year's garlic planting which will take place in a couple of weeks.  As I turned over the bed, I discovered the intricate network of cedar roots in one end of the bed.  This bed was one of the first we made - before we realized how important it was to have the exit drain pipes above ground!  I had thought this bed only had one drain, but obviously there was a second one hidden under the old carpeting which keeps down the weeds in the path between two beds.

Exposed roots on the inside of the bed.

Digging out the end of the bed finally disclosed the second drain which showed me where to dig outside the bed to find where the roots were coming in.  I hacked off the roots, which given a few more months, would have completely filled the drain pipe.  My husband has cut out a piece of the old carpeting to expose the drain end and in addition, drilled out what he could of the pipe.

Cedar roots showing on the outside of the drain pipe before being drilled out.

When cedar roots work their way in through the drainage pipes they are fairly easy to deal with.  Not so easy is one bed where they've discovered a hairline crack in the base of a bed.  With this bed, I have to dig it out each year and rip out the roots.  Unless I expose the entire base of this bed, I'll never be free of roots here.  It's a never-ending battle with the cedar trees and their roots will travel an amazing distance to search out the rich soil in my concrete raised beds.