DAMAGE FROM TREE ROOTS IN A LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Tree roots can be invasive and cause damage to infrastructure like sidewalks, building foundations, utilities and waterproof membranes. In a landscape design avoid planting of trees near infrastructure, especially if they have aggressive, invasive roots like willow, poplars, black locust, silver maple and cherries. In places like Vancouver with heavier clay soils ornamental cherries in the landscape design often have shallow roots that can lift up sidewalks.
Tree roots over a suspended slab as is often the case with landscape designs over a parkade, can be a problem. In this case the katsura tree roots were so aggressive that they lifted a concrete planter and the roots ended up compromising the waterproof membrane. For landscape designs with waterproof membranes over a suspended slab choose smaller tress with less aggressive roots like Japanese maple, vine maple, styrax, dogwood and stewartia.
