I got someone to cut down a rather too tall and significantly too unsightly fir tree at the front of the house. During the negotiations over a price for cutting it down and taking it away I was assured that they weren't cowboys like some of them out there, and that there unlike many they knew there was no point in cutting down a tree and not doing anything about the roots. By this time I was only half paying attention because my children were doing something dangerous with a ladder, but I had a vague impression they'd do something specialised and difficult (but important) with the roots.
After 45 minutes' work with a chainsaw, including a few breaks to sharpen its teeth with a rusty metal file, the three of them had removed everything except the stump. Then one of them cut a slot in the stump, and another poured in what looked like engine oil, which in fact it turned out to be. I started to get an explanation about the engine oil, but then I could see from the arc of water jetting into the neighbours' garden that the children were out at the back messing around with the hose-pipe, so I couldn't give it my full attention.
So anyway, what is this idea that the roots need to have something fatal done to them? If a 7-metre fir tree has been reduced to a stump that's pretty much it, isn't it? It's not going anywhere after that. And what's this business of the engine oil?
Daniele