Why are tree roots coming above the ground?
Roots radiating across the lawn like ridges, often scraped pale on top by the mower, or soil eroding away from the base of the tree.
Watch it, correct the care behind it, and check again next season. Nothing here threatens people or property in its current state.
Surface roots are almost always a nuisance rather than a hazard, and for several Kansas species they are simply how the tree grows. The exceptions worth knowing: a root wrapped hard against the trunk is slowly strangling it, and roots newly lifted out of the soil on one side of a tree describe a root plate that has moved, which is an entirely different problem.
What this looks like
Healthy surface roots run outward from the trunk in a spoke pattern, rounded on top, with bark on them, and they get gradually thinner with distance. The picture that should stop you is different: roots on one side lifted clear of the ground with soil cracked or mounded around them, or a root that curves around the trunk and presses into it hard enough to flatten the bark on that side.
- Ridged roots radiating outward, worn pale where equipment crosses them
- Thin, struggling turf under the canopy where the roots are competing and shading
- A root crossing the trunk at soil level with the bark flattened or sunken where they meet
- Roots lifted free of the soil on one side with cracked or heaved ground — a different and urgent picture
What causes it in Kansas
Roughly in order of how often each turns out to be the answer here. The line under each one is what separates it from the others — open a cause for the detail.
1Normal habit in Kansas soil
How to tell: The pattern is symmetrical around the tree and the species is a known surface rooter.Roots go where air and water are, and in tight clay over compacted subsoil that means the top foot. Silver maple, cottonwood, pin oak, sycamore, and willow are surface-rooted by nature and unapologetic about it.
2Soil loss and settling
How to tell: The soil surface under the tree sits lower than the surrounding lawn, and the roots are exposed evenly.Rain, irrigation runoff, and foot traffic carry away the thin layer that covered the roots. Nothing rose; the ground fell.
3Compaction
How to tell: Water runs off rather than soaking in, and it is difficult to push a screwdriver into moist soil under the canopy.Vehicles, equipment, and years of traffic collapse the pore space roots need, and roots respond by staying at the surface where oxygen still exists.
4Girdling roots
How to tell: No visible root flare on that side, the trunk looks like it goes into the ground straight or even pinched, and one root crosses hard against it.A root that circles the trunk instead of running outward — usually formed in a nursery container or by improper planting — presses on the trunk as both expand and cuts off the tissue that feeds the roots. Maples and lindens are especially prone.
5Mower and trimmer damage
How to tell: Pale, shredded upper surfaces on roots that cross a mowing line.Repeated scalping strips bark from the tops of surface roots and opens a path for decay into the root system.
6Root plate movement
How to tell: It is new, it is one-sided, the soil is disturbed, and there is usually a lean to match.Roots lifting out of the soil on one side after a wind event, with cracked or mounded ground, means the tree has begun to tip rather than that the roots have grown upward.
What to do, and what to avoid
Safe to check yourself
All from the ground — no ladder, no saw.
- Find the root flare: the trunk should visibly widen where it enters the soil, all the way around
- Look for any root that touches or crosses the trunk rather than running away from it
- Check whether the exposure is even around the tree or concentrated on one side
- After a storm, walk the whole root zone looking for cracked, raised, or spongy ground
What not to do
The responses that make this one worse or permanent.
- Do not cut surface roots to make mowing easier — each cut takes away anchorage and opens a route for decay into the root system
- Do not spread more than an inch or two of soil over the root zone; burying roots suffocates them, and this is one of the most common ways homeowners kill mature trees
- Do not lay plastic sheeting or impermeable landscape fabric under the mulch
- Do not build a raised bed or retaining ring around the trunk
When to contact an arborist
Whatever this narrows it down to, the assessment that decides what happens next has to happen at the tree. Why that is
Common questions
Can I just cover the roots with soil and grass seed?
Can I just cover the roots with soil and grass seed?
This is the most common and most damaging response. Roots are at the surface because they need oxygen there, and even a few inches of fill can smother them. A wide mulch ring two to three inches deep, kept off the trunk, solves the mowing problem without harming the tree.
Why won't grass grow under my tree?
Why won't grass grow under my tree?
Shade, root competition for water, and dry soil under a canopy that sheds rainfall outward. Rather than fighting it every year, most people are better off widening the mulch ring to the drip line — which also ends mower damage and adds organic matter as it breaks down.
Will surface roots damage my foundation or sidewalk?
Will surface roots damage my foundation or sidewalk?
Roots lift sidewalks and driveways routinely, since a slab is easier to move than compacted soil. Foundation damage is rarer and usually involves shrink-swell clay drying out rather than roots pushing on concrete. Cutting roots to fix a slab has real consequences for tree stability and is worth discussing before the concrete work starts, not after.
Kansas Tree Guide is an independent educational resource. Nothing on this site replaces an on-site assessment by a qualified arborist or tree-care professional. Last reviewed August 2026.
Often seen alongside this
A second symptom narrows the cause faster than more detail about the first.
Not what you are seeing? Work the symptom guide again.