In article , Nel
wrote:

While walking on the grass in my bare feet at the weekend, I noticed a
bobbily bit under foot. On closer inspection I found it was a tree root
from a tree about 10-12 metres away, outside of the garden. I pulled it up
as much as I could, creating a rip right across the grass before it seemed
to go deeper forcing me to cut it - still about 2m inside the lawn.

Can these tree roots have any adverse effects on the lawn (hogging the water
etc.) and is there a best practice for getting rid of them?

Some tree roots can be very damaging - especially if they head for the
foundations of your house. In the lawn they will take moisture away and
they can also make the lawn uneven and therefore potentially hazardous.
If they break through to the surface they can wreak havoc on mower
blades too.

But you can also cause damage by severing a sizeable root. As it dies
and rots down, it will cause a depression in your lawn. And it can
still throw out new roots from the point where you severed it, even if
you use a chemical in a bid to kill it.

I live with mine. I have a row of mature poplars up to 100ft high on
one side of the garden and their roots go right across my lawn,
throwing up hundreds of pesky suckers which grow faster the more I mow
over them.

I could kill the trees but they are more important to me than the lawn.
But if they were heading for the house I would have to do something
about them.