Saving Sophie

We bought this house 3 years ago and there is an incredible tree in the back yard....Sophie is a giant Silver Maple and they tell us she has been here way before the house was built, so she's probably 90+ years old.

Last summer I noticed that there were black spots on most all of her leaves...no bugs that I could see and no curling of the leaves, just the black spots. I met a woman in late October who is a Master Gardener and told her about the black spots and without further description, she immediately told me that "the tree's immune system was being compromised by covering the root system."

I felt sure that she was right because there is a huge mound around the base of the tree, but it was like that when we bought the house. I have asked some neighbors and they tell me that the woman who lived here before had some remodeling done and had all the excess dirt piled on the base of the tree....so now we know how it got there and that it's been there for about 6 years.

Today my Darling Husband started removing the dirt (and rocks) he got about half of it done and was considerably more gentle than most would have been with "Sophie's roots", knowing that he would damage them if he weren't. He hauled 9 yard carts of dirt and rocks to the side yard and roots have emerged and a few of them have "gouges" in them from his removing the dirt.

He spent the rest of the time rinsing the tree with the garden hose to remove the packed in dirt as much as possible and Sophie's looking good on one side now.

My question is what do we do now? About the gouges? Do they need to be sealed? Any other hints about what to do?

He plans to finish the other half of the tree, but voiced out loud that he hoped he wasn't doing "more damage than good" with the gouges in the roots....they're not horrible, but they're there just the same.

If anyone can give any advise at this point it will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Ms Ladybyte

Following you will see pictures of Sophie and Michael today as he tried to bare her roots.    ;-)

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UPDATE!!  We had a Certified Arborist come look at Sophie and her situation and he told us that she is VERY, VERY healthy.  He said the dirt piled on her roots probably didn't hurt her any but he did think that it was a good idea to remove it all and that she will probably be around for a long time to come.  We're VERY happy!!  ;-)