Is this pine in trouble?
Was doing yard work the other day when I realized our loblolly pine in the back is quite buried. Our yard is sloped towards this pine and I suspect that when that fence was built it started the gradual process of preventing all the leaf litter from moving further down hill. I would guess the fence is about a decade old, already in when we bought the house. As a result it looks like the years of “mulching” have gradually raised the soil level and now the pine is actually quite buried. I dug away what I could gently to get a good look and I can see the bark looks a little deteriorated but I don’t see rotting. Additionally the canopy looks full and healthy.
Is there any chance it will have acclimated to being slightly sunken since it would’ve been such a gradual process? Is there anything I can do to support it? It seems like an uphill battle to try to dig it out further since that would create sort of a bowl around the base and in this clay soil it’ll probably hold even more water. Unfortunately I have dogs and getting rid of the fence really isn’t an option