poplar problems

[fred]

Yes I know I should be addressing this elswhere but hey ho My son cut down two poplars in his garden last year. Inevitably they are regrowing out of the stump which he regularly trims back. Now he claims thy are trying to regrow by extending their roots. Is this possible ? What would be the bst way to kill the stumps. He's been quoted £690 to have them finished off with a stump grinder. He has tried drilling holes and filling thm with sodium chlorate ( I think thts what he said. I told him to switch to neat Rounup

[Andy Burns]

Or the «compost-accelerant» previously sold by Dax as Root Out

check prices elsewhere ...

[Jeff Layman]

How big are the stumps? Drilling holes and filling with neat Roundup is a good idea, but only if you drill the holes round the edge, just inside the bark, where the tree's "vessels" are for water and food transport. Plug the holes after filling with a bit of wood if rain is due. There is no point at all in drilling in the dead wood in the middle of the stump. The other thing to do is let any suckers grow and when the leaves appear spray them with Roundup.

Whatever he does, it will take years for the stumps to rot down. Only a stump grinder or very careful use of a chainsaw will tidy things up relatively quickly.

[Colin Bignell]

The tree surgeons who cut down some trees for me used SBK.

[Adrian Caspersz]

Hmmm, wonder if going around the side of the stump with a router to remove the vessels would work?

Or going at it lower down with a multi-tool to tear out similar material?

Oh, there's a thing about mis-using DIY powertools for gardening ...

[Jeff Layman]

The idea is to keep the vessels active so that the glyphosate from the Roundup is transported down into the roots and then into any new roots/suckers.

I've snapped off spade-ended drill bits drilling into tree stumps.

[Tim+]

Without fresh input from leaves, where is the energy for growth going to come from?

Unlikely IMO.

How big are they? Any reason why he can’t dig around the bases of the stumps and cut the bigger roots with a sabre saw? I bought a cheap corded saw for just the purpose years ago. Blades get blunted quickly but they’re cheap enough.

This would be the nearest equivalent.

Tim

[John Rumm]

We recently had three poplar's removed because their roots were causing damage. The tree surgeons used "Eco Plugs"[1] which seem to be glyphosate based.

They drilled holes all around the periphery of the stump, and hammered them in:

The dosage required depends on the species of tree and the diameter.

[1]

[Fredxx]

I laughed when I saw "ecoplugs" filled with weed killer!

A tree surgeon told me to drill holes in the stump, close to the edges and fill with neat glyphosate. Covering the stump if there was a chance of rain.

I wonder if this is now too late as the stump will be dead and no longer trying to transport nutrients (and glyphosate) to the roots.

In the meantime, every time I saw a sapling I would cut and spot the exposed sapling stem with neat glyphosate.

[SH]

We had 60 trees in our back garden.

We had a tree surgeon chop them all down and left the wood for our woodburner and took away the foliage. This worked out at around £1200 so that was £20 a tree.

Then we had a tree stump grinder who ground all the stumps out, that was another £600 on top makign it £10 per tree.

Its very expensive to do either just for 1 tree but very cost effective if you have as many as I did. as the tree surgeon and stumper grinder were here all day, not spending time in their trucks driving or unloading & loading equipment!

S.

[John Rumm]

I guess the "eco" bit is the precise placement and control of said weed killer. :-)

If it is sprouting, and /or suckers are growing, then it is not dead yet.

[fred]

We had 150 poplars in a small copse. Too close to the house. Tree surgeon charge £600 (many years ago) For this he chopped down the trees, ground down the stumps. Chipped a large number for us to use and transported the rest and the foliage away. I was very pleased with the result, The following winter we planted 150 mixed whips in their place, among them the sycamore now giving us grief. The whips are now mature and very pleasing

[Tim+]

You had to plant sycamores? I thought they planted themselves, everywhere. ;-)

Tim

[Andrew]

[Rob H]

Yes they certainly do. I have pulled out dozens of sycamore seedlings over the lat few weeks I class them as a weed

[Animal]

Removing a stump with a circulaw saw is fairly easy. Cut crisscross all over the top, hammer the bits off & repeat until all gone. Any plant except grasses will die if you're persistent about removing any growth.

[ajh]

Amonium sulfamate crystals in a 13mm hole with a bit of dowel on top doesn't leave bits of plastic in the ground when the wood has rotted out. A tenth of the price too.

Top tip with poplars is to poison them in mid summer and fell them in autumn.

[Rod Speed]

Clearly not dead if its producing suckers.

[John Rumm]

Indeed - the important bit is more the placement of whatever you are using rather than the specific product.

It needs to be round the periphery of the tree quite close to the bark, with a regular spacing.

[ajh]

That's right, it is the phloem between to the bark and cambium that carries the poison down to the root.