Above-ground Stump removal ideas needed

[Tony]

I live near Pensacola, FL, and recently experienced Hurricane Ivan. Fortunately my home had minor damage, but my yard which I had invested much effort in landscaping these past few months has been decimated.

The biggest problem I face is figuring out the best way to handle the removal of two root balls from trees uprooted by the storm. The smaller root ball sits above the ground and is about 4' in diameter. The larger root ball is about 6' in diameter. I have already cut up the trunk portion of both trees.

I'm assuming that having the root balls lifted out of the yard by crane would be very expensive. Having them dragged out by tractor or similar device would likely damage a large portion of the yard (and the underground sprinkler system). I could have them ground, but I'm not sure if it is possible for a stump grinder to work on a root ball that sits totally about ground and is laying on its side.

Can anyone suggest anything I could do to best remove these? I don't want to take a chain saw to them because of the massive amount of clay-rich soil embedded in the roots. I had contemplated using a hose to try and wash the soil away from the rootball a bit at a time. I'm not sure if this would really even be feasible, though.

Any suggestions on what to do with these would be greatly appreciated.

Tony

[Roger]

If you or a friend has a power washer - or they can be rented, or bot from from Home Depot for 100-150 bucks - you could blast the root ball and remove much of the clay. Only need to remove enough clay to cut roots down to a ball-shaped dense mass. Then try rolling it out of the yard, up a ramp, and into a pickup. Never done this - just an idea.

[Robert Morein]

Gouge a hole in the center with a chainsaw (the bigger the better). Put a bag of charcoal in it and light it. Should burn most of it.

[PrecisionMachinisT]

underground

Bury them deeper than they was, and any luck at all, they will re-sprout and a new tree will grow--depents a lot on the species and if there is suffient starches in the rootball......you will know if you start getting suckers to grow offa them as these will definately need trimmed if you only want a single trunk....

Im a machinist by trade, and am a nurseryman as a hobby--to me the whole gig reeks of possible opportunity...........anybody maybe need several hundred rooted trees that do well in Florida ????

[SteveB]

I have done this twice, and it IS work, but it works. We have sandy soil in Nevada where these trees were planted. We started digging them out by the roots, and used a big shop vac to remove the dirt as we went. This way, you could easily see the roots that were holding the thing. We cut those with a sharp double bladed long handled axe. Any type of chainsaw or regular saw dulls quickly. On one, we had a come along on it with a tight bind on it because we couldn't get the truck close. On the other, we had a chain to a four wheel drive truck. It was slow going, but in both cases at a time once it started to move, it popped out from there, breaking the remaining roots on its own.

Don't know if that would work with the type of soil you have. We had a neighbor who suggested the water blaster idea, but decided we would soon have a muddy moat. It was a chore, but they took only about three hours each. One was a eucalyptus tree, and the other a chinaball. Both trunks were about sixteen inches in diameter. If you haven't cut the main trunk yet, leave it a little tall, and this will improve your pulling leverage.

HTH. There is no easy way to do it.

Steve

[HA HA Budys Here]

Clay? In Florida?

[Tony]

Absolutely. I'm in Northwest Florida and most of the yards here have pretty acidic clay soil. It's only on the beaches that I've ever seen sandy soil (Pensacola Beach [what's left of it], Gulf Breeze, and so on).

I have "soil" in one section of my yard that even after top dressing with organic material and core aerating several seasons is still so hard that you can't put a screwdriver in the soil unless it is wet.

I'd be thrilled with a higher sand content in my yard.

Tony

[Oscar_Lives]

How do you remove an underground stump?

[PrecisionMachinisT]

Hehe...

100 interesting and fun things to do with high nitrogen fertilizer.........

[John Hines]

With a backhoe.

[JerryMouse]

Is there some reason you can't blast 'em out?

Dynamite is easy to use. The guys who sell it can give you pointers.

[Tony]

Well, considering that one of the stumps is about 3' from my house, I'm a bit tentative about using such extreme measures. :)

Tony

[ameijers]

Ignore Jerry, he thinks he is witty.

I take it you don't live in the kind of neighborhood where you can just drag the rootballs to a disused corner of the lot, and leave them as habitat for small creatures? All sorts of things would be very happy living in the nooks and crannies. Failing that, simplest solution is to just clean out and deepen the holes they came out of, and bury them. If planting replacement trees makes that not an option, you are either facing a whole lot of manual labor with shovel and ax and maul and wedges, or a decent sized check to somebody with the equipment to get them out of there w/o trashing your lawn and sprinklers and such. Dirty wood like that will kill a chainsaw quick, and possibly you, too, from kickback when it jams. People who clear trees for a living, when they can get away with it, dozer the root balls and other chaff into bigass piles, soak with #2, and burn them. Unless you can leave them sit till weather washes dirt off, chipper guy won't even want to touch them- those dirt clods really cut blade life.

aem sends....

[Alan Sung]

That's not completely true. At a local golf course where they cleared some woods, all of the stumps were taken out with an excavator and placed in a huge pile. Then some special piece of machinery was brought in that looked like a 10 foot diameter cylinder, maybe 8-10 feet high. Inside the cylinder was a giant flail spinning at a high speed. The giant stumps were dropped in and what came out of this machine was a nice steady stream of rich looking soil. I think it was less than 30 seconds to reduce a stump of a 18" diameter tree to 'nothing'.

-al sung

[ameijers]

Wow- never seen that particular sort of device before. Sounds like a Tim Taylor special. Guess things have progressed a little since I got an inside job. Ordinary stump grinders and towed chippers for liftable chunks were all I ever got to see close up, and both of those weren't that hard to jam.

aem sends...

[Claudia]

stump root balls NEVER roll cooperatively, unless it isn't necessary for them too. think it is one of Murphy's laws.

[John Hines]

Drum grinders. Come in big and bigger sizes. They are what are used for logging operations, and municipal yard waste recycling.

Amazing what you can find on the 'net, if you do a thorough search for chipper/shredders.

[Beecrofter]

Yeah it's called a tub grinder, make nice mulch.

[Harry K]

I read through the thread and don't really see any suggestions that you can use except for possibly burning. My approach would be a comgination of some of them. Pressure washer to get as much dirt as possible off, chain saw to cut them into chunks you can move.

No, cutting up the dirty root balls will not destroy your saw. It will destroy your chain, bar, drive sprocket and possibly the clutch. These are easily replaceable and not that expensive. Even just pitching the saw away at the end of the job will be cheaper than any other method (except burning) You will also be sharpening the chain several times while working.

This is one of those jobs that will cost money (unless you can burn them in place). Some jobs just can't be done 'on the cheap'.

Harry K

[Charles H. Buchholtz]

There's another approach which is easy, inexpensive, and won't damage anything, but it does take a lot of time: rotting it out.

Wood will decompose into soil given four additional ingredients: air, water, nitrogen, and bacteria.

Air: Expose as much of the stump as possible. Drill holes into it to let air in.

Water: Water it frequently; try to keep it moist. If you can, rig up a drip to keep it constantly moist. If possible, keep it out of the sun so it won't dry out as quickly.

Nitrogen: Apply a high nitrogen fertilizer

Bacteria: Get some rotten leaves or soil (the stuff you scoop out of your gutters is good), and spread it over the stump.

If you see mushrooms growing on and around the stump, and see grubs burrowing in it, then you are doing it right. Fungi, insects, and bacteria will all work to convert the wood back to soil.

If you keep a compost pile, start a new one on top of the stump.

It may take a year or more.

--- Chip