When i moved into my house, we had a large tree stump (5 foot tall, maybe three foot across) which appeared dead
Over time, this thing developed shoots, then lots of branches, which grew to about 15 feet tall.
We didnt cut it back- the new branches and leaves gave us more privacy.

sooo... about two weeks ago, I noticed my brick garden wall is leaning slightly, and got rapidly and dramatically worse, until i had to take it down yesterday. Spoke to neighbours, and apparently two previous owners had same problems, and a tree surgeon had visitied and left it "definatly dead now"

I have cut off all the new growth, leaving just the original stump. (which is obv. very much alive under the surface)

question (eventually)- what to do next? cut down stump, dig up roots? leave roots? poison it?

We had some laurel tree stumps that refused to die... I drilled loads of holes in the top, poured in some 'Deep Root' tree stump killer, covered the whole thing with a heavy plastic bag, then piled earth on top (light triggers the new shoots, apparently).

The stumps have shown no more signs of 're-birth' for the past 5 years since doing that.

HTH
David

Drill holes and pour stuff like that.
You can get tree stump killing chemicals from most B+Q type places.

True story (now family legend)
When my great grandfather had this problem back with a treestump in his back garden in the 30s he mixed up a load of gunpowder and put it under the stump. Lit the fuse, my entire family ran and waited for the bang. Huge bang. Tree stump had completely disappeared. Couldn't find any evidence of the stump until he went to drive to town and on going to the front of the house found a great bit hole in the top of his soft-top car and a tree strump sitting in the passenger seat..... I wouldn't believe it either!!!!

hmmm, not sure, i'm a bit stumped




it won't be cheap but get a tree surgeon to cut the 'stump' down and then grind out the root. Its definately the fastest solution.

Otherwise i'd try and cut the stump a lot lower to the ground, then drill lots of holes and get lots of stump killer in. Might also be worth digging a trench a few feet out and putting stump killer into any roots you find.

Not as simple as that, particularly on clay soil. Removing a tree (stump) that is still respiring can lead to a sudden and dramatic increase in moisture content of the soil. In clay soils this can cause swelling of the soil with equally devastating results on nearby structures. Seen a lot of it in the past.

Local guy swears by drilling holes and hammering in copper rods/pipes apparrently it kills them off gradual like. I don't know if it's true or legend perhaps someone else knows.

we had a similar problem, but me and my dad took it to the extreme. hired a digger from HSS.

to start, we cut the tree right down with chainsaws, then hacked as much of the big roots as we could. digger arrived and we dug it around it, used the digger and some chains i found by the road side to lift the root ball (must've weighed about a ton) into the back of a van and took it to the dump. in all we had 4 tree stumps, a pond to dig, and another peice of land to flatten down.

ok, so a digger is maybe extreme for one tree stump but its REALLY good fun

was about £200 for the weekend though (we got everything done easily in the 2 days

regardless of how you do it, i reckon it needs to be dug out

from the size and the sprouting at the base it sounds like a big old lime tree,

you need to drill a hole in the trunk at an angle downwards, at least into the centre of the trunk,
and then fill it with soda ash, (can't think of the chemical name for it at the mo as the little grey cells are on strike) but will get back to you on that,

removing it ,
its a lot of work on something that size but the hard way, and there isnt an easy way unless you pay someone else, is dig a trench round it a couple of ft away from the trunk,
as you expose the roots dig under each one and saw through them they will be full of moisture and hard to saw and waggling around as you do it,

when you've gone round the tree then you have to dig underneath going round again, trying to tip it over to cut anything thats exposed,
cutting any roots you come across and go down to cut through the main tap root that goes straight down from the trunk,

a tree is like a dumbell what you have above ground when it was fully grown (branches etc is almost the same underneath the ground,

so if it had a three ft trunk its bloody big,

john

Do NOT aproach the local Council. Their Arborial Officer (Tree hugger) will not let you cut it down or destroy it, and may put a TPO (Tree preservation Order) on it.

So whatever you do, do it quietly.

Its the light that attract the buds.
Drill deep holes in it and fill with deep root kill,
oe some equally nasty tree poison.

Agreed with the chopping it down and then the ground raising, (Its called Ground Heave) through the water not being used by the tree.

My Neighbour has the same problem with a Weeping willow on Clay soil.
Its been poollarded (severely cut back), and has to be trimmed back each year, for so many years before being removed alltogether. It was a Mortage Company condition, as it was undermining the house.

little grey cells have started working again,

soda ash is Sodium Chlorate
a mate put this on his garden and no weeds for over four years, in fact nothing whatsoever grew for over four years,


although a JCB with a digger will do it quicker,

john

a very quick calculation gives well over half a ton just for the trunk thats still there not counting the roots,

apparently its a lime tree...

the problem is that it sits right on my garden boundary, hence why it toppled the old wall ( which bordered the garden)

so the wall is down, but i need to rebuild something as my garden boundary.

this might be a fence or something, but im wary of how to do this, since the fence or wall will have to be built on top of the roots...

especially considering the 'ground heave' - i dont want to build a nice new wall or fence, then have it fall down!!

Can you still get sodium chlorate? The main ingredient of home made bombs that was - chlorate & sugar...
Bob

quote:

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Originally posted by omega 24 v6
Local guy swears by drilling holes and hammering in copper rods/pipes apparrently it kills them off gradual like. I don't know if it's true or legend perhaps someone else knows.

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Drill a hole down the middle, bit of petrol and a match

Yeah I'm the lazy one.

you can get sodium chorate, i was surprised to see my local diy shop had it on the shelf as its much stronger than the normal stuff they sell at garden centres or b&q for this kind of thing,

i think the bomb chemical is sodium nitrate, but could be wrong on that,

john

if i hire a stump grinder, do i just leave the roots underneath alone?

dont they rot, collapse, and cause anything on top (a new wall) to fall over?