Best way? Its more like a large plant (castor oil plant) but its pretty large.
Tried to dig around but the roots seem well spread. Is it a case or suck it up and dig it out or can I kill it somehow and wait for it to die off?
Tried the commerical stump killer stuff in the past - useless...
I'd dig as much as I could, chopping roots off as far as possible, then hitch a strop to the Landrover and pull it out.
If I couldn't get the Landrover in, I'd rig the Hi-lift jack up to winch it out.
Otherwise, simple diggin' 'n cuttin' and brute force .. ;)
A chain saw might help ...
Cheap wood chisel bit in an SDS drill is a very effective way of severing roots below ground level. With enough of the roots cit, it becomes a much easier job.
and dig it out or can I kill it somehow and wait for it to die off?
Patience and muscle. Preferably of the 50bhp digger sort.
ring the plant first, cutting any lateral roots, then go under and break the taproot if it has one.
Rope it and drag it out.
and dig it out or can I kill it somehow and wait for it to die off?
Angle grinder.
Fein Multimaster.
and dig it out or can I kill it somehow and wait for it to die off?
Stump grinder. Messy but effective.
Colin Bignell
Dynamite!
JGH
B&Q are fresh out of it...
up and dig it out or can I kill it somehow and wait for it to die off?
A reciprocating saw with long narrow woodsaw blade is quite good for this if you don't have access to the heavy duty stuff.
OOOh yes, the possibilities for harm are almost endless ...
Burn it out. Splash with cheapo vegetable oil to make it more flammable. May take quite a few application but it will remove pretty much all stumps - or reduce them to easily removed ashes anyway.
Doesn't work unless its well old and dried out.
to be honest, get a new chain and sharpening file for the chainsaw and expect it to be wreked when you are finished, and just carve it up
There are so many ways to do it but none do not involve hard physical effort and/or expense.
Personally at the cheap end a pick spade and saw are perfectly usable.
Up at the top end you have diggers and stump grinders
I tend to save all these jobs until I have a digger onsite - its the best way to totally clear ground, followed by rotovating or ploughing.
I have burned stumps out but they were very old and dry.
Just attack it with a hammer and an old wood chisel, half an hour work with same demolished a 10" stump in my lawn last year.
I have ground down bigger stumps with an electric chainsaw. I re-fitted an old chain and used a "G" clamp as a second handle on the end of the bar. That soon ground down 3 bigger stumps that had been cut off just 4 or 5 inches above ground. They were all in lawn, I wasn't bothered about removing them completely, just ground them down and turfed over.
Mike
Burning out stumps was the standard way of clearing land for farming here back in the day, at least for stumps that were too big to pull out with horses straight off. I think I recall reading somewhere that it could take a couple of weeks per stump, though - not a "light a fire for a few hours" kind of thing.
Yes, that's the way I've done it in the past, at least for stumps where the trunk was up to a foot in diameter. Anything larger and I'd go for powered equipment, renting if necessary, I think.
cheers
Jules
and dig it out or can I kill it somehow and wait for it to die off?
1/2 a stick of PE4 would shift it
Something the size you describe can be dug out with a mattock - this will shift earth and chop through the roots. Sweaty work, but much more straightforward than some of the other options suggested ;-)
yeah. Mattock is good but spades can be sharpened and axes too
I managed with a pickaxe and a spade, all sharpened. Any roots were cut off with a jigsaw with a coarse blade. I did try with an angle grinder (in UK d-i-y tradition) but it was too dangerous and I'm no youngster either. The whole thing was removed roots and all Robbie
When we moved in 10 years ago, we felled an old apple tree (about 10'). Being completely new to the process, I sawed the truck off about 6" from the ground (doh !!!!!). I then had the bright idea of trying to burn the stump out.
Paraffin, diesel, petrol ... applied repeated, and left to soak for ages, and wrapping a rag round it as a wick all completely failed to catch. I drilled holes, poured paraffin into them and lit it ... still refused to burn.
After 2 afternoons of this, I had to dig it out, and cut the roots round with an axe. Bloody hard work. And I was amazed at the weight of the thing too. I'd guess at least 25 Kg ....
Yeah I've got a cherry-tree stump probably about 18" diameter, 10" high, completely dead, been there for about 10 years now, sticking through a patio, which I've really not wanted to disturb. So burning out seemed the sensible option. I 've attacked it with an axe and log splitters, which just made it look really messy, and last summer I tried setting a small coal fire on the top of it, and it's burned down a bit but after several day's worth of fires, it's still just dished the top of the stump into a charred mess. Think I may try buying a cheap wood chisel for my SDS drill before renewing the offensive this year!
David
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