When we bought our house there were two Bradford Pears in the front – one on each side of the driveway; and two in the back in a bed that was part of a retaining wall. The two in the front were already causing problems. Every time we’d drive over here from Texas, there were limbs down in the front yard. Bradford Pears are not good trees in this area so we had the two in the front taken down and the stumps ground out. We’ve planted serviceberry trees in their place.
The two in the back were way overgrown with limbs hanging over the deck and that’s never good with a Bradford Pear. We had the tree guy look at them and one was not doing well and had to come out so the plan was to cut it and trim the other way back so it wouldn’t do so much damage if it fell. I should say “when” it fell because . . it’s a Bradford Pear.
He removed the one tree and started trimming the other tree but discovered it was hollow and was waiting to split and fall so we had it removed too.
Because of where they were located, he could not grind down the stump, nor could we have it pulled out.
You can see one of the stumps there.
There’s the other one and see those roots? They are massive! You can also see that the tree keeps trying to grow back. It starts growing again in the spring and 200 or 300 shoots per tree will get up to about 5′ tall before Vince cuts it all back again.
There are several methods of removing stumps like this – most of them require chemicals we don’t want to use. Vince said he’s going to drill into it and maybe try to burn it out, then start chopping on it. my guess is the only way, or at least the easiest way is to tear down that retaining wall, have it pulled out, then rebuild the wall and fill it in and start over with planting but it’s a three tired wall so I know we’re not going to do that. At least it’s something that will keep him busy for a while!
In addition to the trees, there were junipers everywhere in that lower level. Vince pulled all those out yesterday and they’re now in the burn pile.
For perspective, here are the other two tiers of that retaining wall. The top tier is the one where we poured concrete and rebuilt the deck steps to come down onto that layer. The second tier has two elderberry trees that I planted in 2020. Probably not the best place for those but I was mostly looking for a place to get them planted so they would survive and I had no idea they would grow so fast and be too big to move by the time Vince got here. There’s another juniper that needs to come out.
Then down below those two is the tier with the two big stumps.
There’s always work to do.
Speaking of elderberries, we planted a bunch of them in Texas and they were way bigger when we planted them than these that I planted here. These have already far surpassed the size of the ones in Texas after about four years. It’s so much easier to grow things here. Even my lavender! I could not get that to survive in Texas. I kept telling Vince . . I’ve planted that everywhere we’ve lived and it always grew but not in Texas. Heat, soil, lack of humidity . . I don’t know but the one I planted (next to the juniper) has done great. There’s another one you might can see that’s smaller because of the shade of the elderberry.
Nelle Coursey says
We had a tree stump in our back yard and the guy who did them told us to put one of the throwaway plastic dishes on the stump, nail it down and put holes in the bottom of it. Then keep Epsom salt in it until it starts dying. If you burn it, it can burn for days or months! Also, the house could move if the roots are gone. Check with your local Ag Commision person, if you have one. I think you and Vince have talked to the one here before.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
The roots aren’t terribly close to the house. The tree is kinda on the side of the house where the basement is so there’s a whole concrete wall that isn’t going to be affected if something next to it is removed (I hope). I don’t think there’s any way we could pull all the roots out, even if we had a backhoe. We don’t want to totally destroy the retaining wall and have to start over.
JustGail says
Those trees certainly are determined to keep going! I’d go ahead and use the tree & stump killer, it’s not like it gets spray everywhere like lawn weed killer does. IIRC, it can be painted on. And you don’t need to keep up with constant trimming the sprouts.
Another way to get rid of the stumps is to make a charcoal fire on them, the charcoal burns slower and deeper that other ways of burning, and might take care of those sprouts too. We did this on a big maple stump that resisted rotting and those “stump eating” chemicals – one summer of using it as the base for charcoal grilling took the stump down far enough to fill in with soil and seed with grass.
Well done getting rid of those nasty trees before they fell down.
JustGail says
Just to clarify – those “stump eating” chemicals had had a few years to dissipate before we did any grilling on them.
Cheryl B says
We had several oak stumps to remove, one in a retaining wall situation. We drilled many large holes in it and filled with Epsom salt. Repeatedly. Stump was definitely rotting and we could chip out chunks. Took a long time. Sadly, retaining wall was clobbered by the very large snow p!ow and the wall and the remains of the stump were removed. Try Epsom salt, maybe it will attract a snow plow.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Thanks for the tip. IF we attract a snow plow, I’m afraid it will knock down our house wall before getting to the retaining wall. The retaining wall supports dirt brought in to fill around the basement. Our main little road is private and the snow plow doesn’t come down it but you can bet every time I see a snow plow on the other road, I’ll think of my retaining wall. 🙂
Val says
We cut the stumps down as close to the ground that we could. Then took the circlarity saw and crosshatched the top cutting down about an inch. It started rotting almost right away. Also taking some of the bark away around the stump will help as well. Burning might not be a good idea because if the soil is loose enough it can spread undergound and be hard to put out.