My analogy roots from the stock market and goes like this; Some of the wealthiest investors don't pay attention to what the market is doing they do something called dollar-cost averaging where no matter what they buy a certain amount of stock, bond, ETF. 

the hedges would accidentally rip out the whole hedge or even if they could do only "half" a hedge, the hedge might die due to the sudden loss of 50% of itself.Other than to manually trim 50% of the hedge without touching the roots (sounds expensive), is there a near maintenance-free way to approach this?

And being in the South, is it possible there are tree roots popping that thing up? 

A tree whose roots are growing into a sewer line does not give a damn about the participants of the sale's sunny, can-do personalities, current mortgage rates, or how sweet 100 Baby's Breath Lane's cash-on-cash return looks on paper.

I worked with a local real estate agent (Zac Elliott with Root Venture Realty), who really helped find the right property and then navigate the entire due diligence process.

We are all rooting for you here.

Great comments from all but the root of the problem here is that "5 years to financial independence" is not a realistic game plan with real estate or any other financial asset despite what some gurus might tell you. 

Under the sink, with a screwdriver lightly punch the corners look for rooted wood.

I have a house that had problems with unruly roots which caused some plumbing blockages.

I recently removed 2 large unsightly and dangerous trees including the roots from the front yard and also removed 2 extremely large overgrown shrubs that covered each side of the house where you see the patch of browns near the windows in the after picture.