Stump removal

[Mike Barnes]

Need to remove stumps of overgrown shrubs from the garden. Diameter up to about three inches. Is winching them out a good DIY solution? Would need to hire a winch. Any tips?

[Andrew Mawson]

Depends what they are and what you have to attach a winch to. The job will be far far easier if you go round the shrub cutting the radial roots with an axe. When I had a load of Leylandii to pull out a couple of year ago even my JCB3CX struggled a bit without a bit of root pruning, they were quite big though :)

Andrew

[Muddymike]

Need to remove stumps of overgrown shrubs from the garden. Diameter up

I have pulled out several with my Tirfor winch using a chain noose around the offending shrub. You do need something to anchor the other end of the winch and a good length of the original shrubs trunk to put the noose around. If you have only left short trunks it may be impossible to winch them.

Mike

[Mike Barnes]

There's about a foot of trunk to put the noose around and a 35' oak tree nearby to act as anchor.

[stuart noble]

Just dig around the base and snip the radials with secateurs. You can then often rock the stump free. 3" diameter you might even get a fork under, or a wrecking bar, or whatever. My latest ploy is to saw a slot in the top of the trunk and whack a bolster down the middle. Whatever it takes really

[larkim]

When SWMBO wants shrubs removing (an annual occurence it seems), we tend to use a long-ish tree saw to cut through the roots once she's dug the trench all around. Tends to work OK, though often finding the one root which is causing the stump not to move sometimes leaves us scratching our heads.

[Martin Brown]

For 3" leaving enough trunk on to use as a lever and a posting spade and crowbar plus a scaffold pole are about as good as anything. You might also want a pruning saw, heavy pruning cutters or heavyweight axe as well depending on how many and thick the various roots are.

Basically dig and rock it until you can isolate each of the strong roots and the lever the thing out. Remember that levers are unforgiving.

[Another John]

Plus a brick! You need a brick, to place in the hole, beside the roots, over which you'll place the end of your scaffold pole, before starting to lever: both improves leverage and provides solid resistance so that your lever doesn't sink into the soil. I have found.

J.

[bert]

In message , Mike Barnes writes

Kinetic recovery rope and a Land Rover Defender - preferably V8

[newshound]

Agree with all the other comments about digging, axes, etc. but one tool I have found useful when access is tight and/or there are rocks / bricks etc close to roots is a wood chisel bit in an SDS drill. That way you can attack each root "surgically" but still with a very decent cutting speed.

[fred]

I find a Mattock very useful for removing stumps combining pick and axe as it does

[Andy Burns]

A mattock is handy AAW.

A recip saw together with all the shagged out old blades you kept for some reason (they will get buckled and/or broken but it won't matter) as well as cutting the roots, it can apply a good amount of rocking back'n'forth to loosen the stump.

[rbel]

I am planning on removing a 12 inch diameter conifer stump this weekend. Unfortunately it is on a steep bank so getting to the roots is not easy/safe.

I am thinking of hiring a tirfor and with that in mind I left 6 feet of trunk to provide plenty of levereage. I have some large lengths of angle iron which I will drive as far as possible into the lawn to provide an anchor and make sure that I get wire rather than ordinary rope for the tirfor.

If that fails it is a question of going down the bank on a rope to cut some of the roots but I really hope that will not be necessary.

[Theo Markettos]

As suggested here recently, the slow burn (literally) approach is potassium nitrate into holes in them - puts decaying fungus onto turbo mode. Then set fire to them - they'll go on burning underground for days, but should take out some of the roots.

(I've not tried this - suspect it's not a great plan for stumps next to the house :)

Theo

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Mike Barnes escribió:

Light a bonfire around them?

[Muddymike]

In message , Mike Barnes

Incredibly dangerous. The MOD define this technique as "not recommended for use with soft skinned vehicles"

Mike

[Chris J Dixon]

and hopefully not like this:

Chris

[Huge]

Drape some blankets over the stump and the rope to absorb the energy when the stump comes out of the ground and sets off towards the vehicle at great speed. BTDT (didn't know any better). It only broke the NSR lamp cluster and put a big dent in the Disco - I don't like to think what would have happened if it had come through the rear screen. (See also my .sig!)

[Huge]

"Thanks" for that! I suspect those retards had no appreciation of the energies involved - if the tow hitch had come off either vehicle, which it very nearly did - see the end of the video, it could easily have killed someone. At least I was only trying to pull a very small bottlebrush tree (*)(Callistemon rigidus) stump out of the ground. Even so, the piece of wood (the stump broke) did several hundred pounds worth of damage to the car.

(* Smaller even than this;

The bad winter we had 3 or 4 years ago killed it.)

[bert]