Tree stump advice

I want to landscape the final area of my garden previously covered in bark chippings.

Two years ago I felled two large Leylandii trees - the stumps, 18 inches in diameter, remain. They are a few inches out of the ground and attempts to kill them with crystals added between the trunk and bark do not appear to have been successful.

I want to lawn the area and plant apple trees.

Will they survive/grow?

How can I remove the stumps? There is no room/access for one of those fancy stump removers.

Any advice would be appreciated please?

Reply to
Kevin
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Dig it out?

Drill holes and add sodium nitrate for a slow burn ~ six months latter.

Drive copper nails into the stump?

You do not have to dig it out in the same day but axe and shovel work can be dangerous.

Shoes with metal toes a good idea and other safety stuff may save you and yours pain in the future.

Bill

Reply to
William Wagner

Thanks for your advice but these are serious roots/stumps and I don't think practical to dig out.

Reply to
Kevin

use a hammer drill and the longest & widest drill bit you can find. Drill as far down as you can go and do this a number of times. Fill the holes with potassium nitrate and wait. It will take some time but will eventually rot the stump out.

rob

Reply to
George.com

Are you certain a stump grinder can't be used? The 'nose' on the one I rented was narrow enough to get in some tight spots.

Carl

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

The stumps are 18 inches across? - how is it you can't get a stump grinder in there? It's not that big a stump for a tiller-type grinder.

Rental stump grinders are the size of - and look just like - a gasoline-powered roto-tiller with a much smaller nose - a blade that's only an inch wide at best, two inches with guard.

Rent a bigger hand-contolled stump grinder (don't get the cheapest little one) and grind. And grind. And grind. You want to have the blade teeth break off bits of wood from the stump along the grain of the wood - and that is easiest done by chipping at the edge of the stump, but not so far into the stump that the grinder blade will pull the grinder up onto the stump. The handles will buck some -- down if you are going at it right, in (this is not getting the job done) if you are riding up onto the stump. Depends on the blade size of the grinder, but going three-four inches deep in the ground is a good depth to start.

Start in the dirt and sweep the blade into the closest edge of the stump - Let the blade chip away wood from the near-side VERTICAL edge of the stump, with enough down pressure to keep it chipping and not so much that it will jump out of your hands - and don't bog the engine down. Steady and patience. Grind out an inch or less into the stump, and few inches deep across the stump, sweeping back and forth, taking a bit out of the stump at each slow and steady sweep. . You will probably only do a couple inches in a minute on a stump that size, but that's five feet deep an hour.

15 minutes, each stump....

just keep chipping away at it.....

Reply to
hob

Bullshit. The stump grinder that I rented is a walk behind unit which can fit into any space.

Reply to
lwhaley

The message from "lwhaley" contains these words:

Maybe the OP has a garden whose only access is through the house, and up and down flights of stairs. That is not uncommon where old terraced houses have been converted into apartments.

Even if the OP could get the stumpgrinder into the garden , it won't fit, or won't be operable, through any gap narrower than itself.

Janet.

Reply to
Janet Baraclough

Maybe the OP is a troll who made up the problem from his imagination. Two 18 inch stumps and no room for a grinder??? Not practical to dig out??? A garden with two 18" trees but no gate?? My answer to these questions has been previously stated.

I am usually more polite but am sorry to say this looks like a troll. I usually dont bother to reply to posts which make no sense, so please forgive my impatience There have been many posts in this forum on stump removal and they are easily searched.

Reply to
lwhaley

The message from "lwhaley" contains these words:

Yes, why not? I've seen scores of city tenement gardens with much bigger trees, and no gate, in older parts of UK cities. In Edinburgh, a rectangle of tenement buildings was commonly built (in granite, lasts forever) around an inner court. The inner court is divided by walls and or iron railings, into small areas beloning to each tenement. The only accesses to the gardens are through the buildings, via a winding stone stair going down through the basement (or, a more modern fire-escape from upper storeys).

Such back yards are at least a hundred years old, and the trees in them which are not much younger, may be as high as the building.

Janet.

Reply to
Janet Baraclough

I can put my legs behind my head in a yoga asana. I guess you can too based on this assertion of fitting into any space.

Reply to
Jangchub

Here's the problem with your scenario. We are talking about stumps not trees. If we have a stump then we can assume that the tree was removed. Access sufficient to remove such large trees would also suffice for the much smaller stump grinder so any option which exists for getting the grinder into the yard if they could get those large trees out.

I will grant that there may be a very narrow situation where such a thing would be impossible. Maybe the tree was removed with a crane. Maybe there is a masonry fence with absolutely no gate. Then again, maybe the poster made up the whole thing to get idiots like you and me to argue it. That's a lot of maybes.

Considering the overall quality of the posts on this forum and on usenet in general I believe the odds favor the troll. The two standard ways to remove a stump are grinding or digging. I perform these tasks routinely on my place and they are not difficult much less impossible. I assure you that the machine in question is not a large one and takes up little space, far less than the trees described. I rent when I want a stump grinder so it is true that you need a truck or car with a hitch. You can also hire a service which will grind it.

There are other less common options which have been mentioned here and on many other threads. Most involve drilling holes and filling with fertilizer. Burning your stump can be a pleasure if you have a bonfire planned anyway.

You can ignore your stumps and I usually do. Most species will rot in place in a few years nothing wrong with that. Other species will put out suckers from the stump or root system and they are more persistent. In any case thank you for your opinion and all the best.

Reply to
lwhaley

The message from "lwhaley" contains these words:

I disagree. Expert treefellers here, routinely dismantle huge trees in a confined area, in small bits, with no more kit than ropes and saws. Just because the root/ trunk is in a very confined or difficult to access spot area, does not mean they can't reach the crown, or drop bits away from the root/trunk obstruction. l. I work in a woodland with a population of trees several hundred years old, where some have to be dismantled evry year, often with nowhere to (economically) extract the corpse. We just burn the whole lot, often in a very tiny area to spare nearby rare or precious trees. It's slow, but do-able once you have a small very intense fire going for a week or so. (Wet climate; forest fire isn't a headache most of the year) . In tenement courtyards, where crane access is impossible, that's the only way big trees can be dismantled and disposed of once they become dangerous.

Yay, at last :-)

Maybe the tree was removed with a crane.

Quite possibly , but I have seen such scenarios IRL, and it may be instructive to other readers to learn what's possible in a hypothetical scenario outside of their own experience. I'd like to think of dim trolls gnashing their decayed teeth and thinking "damn, they've spoiled my effort".

The two

I agree completely about digging stumps out by hand; I've done so many times and its a far easier and quicker task than most people would guess who have never tried it. When my son was 14, having watched his mother often enough to think it was dead easy, he taught a mate and in their school holidays they made a lot of money stump-digging for people who mistakenly thought it was a huge task. (I recall the little devils discussing how it was not in their financial interest to do a fast easy job; if they slowed down and made it look hard they could charge more).

I've never bothered to do that, other than poisoning some inaccessible or unimportant stump of something that would otherwise re-grow.

:-) BDDT

Janet. (Scotland)

Reply to
Janet Baraclough

While I admit your comment is humorous I have to ask why you make posts to the same forum under different name, eh Kevin?? Hows it going with those "stumps"?? LOL A grinder could be rolled through the house or lifted over the fence.

Reply to
lwhaley

The message from "lwhaley" contains these words:

Jangchub is Buddhist eco-gardener yoga-practitioner Victoria, a longterm poster to this newsgroup. She posts from the USA, is not Kevin, and didn't post as Kevin. Kevin posts from the UK and is not Victoria. What's more, this is not a forum, it's a newsgroup :-).

Janet.

Reply to
Janet Baraclough

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