Getting rid of tree stumps/roots

Hi - we have a flowering cherry in our front garden, part of it looks decidedly dead, we have pruned it in previous years but it seems that only one side of it produces leaves/flowers :rolleyes: etc. - looks quite normal in autumn/winter, when the leaves are falling! We are thinking of removing it but what is the best way to get rid of the stump/roots - what can I use? Any advice please will be very much appreciated.

 

Opinions will differ on this. Some will say drill holes in the stump and pour in noxious chemicals.

Those of us who understand the folly of poisoning our gardens would say leave the stump and grow a climber over it. Or - if you can't bear to keep the stump - the sure way is to expose the roots and saw through them. Then you can physically remove the stump. Remaining bits of root will soon be decomposed by fungi that is present in all healthy soil.

 

Thank you HB - yes you are right I don't really want to use chemicals - I have heard of the method of drilling holes and applying various nasties, and also drilling/boring the stump out but growing something over the stump would be most effective. Would the tree start to sprout again if bits of the stump/roots remained?

 

Not if you cut the tree down to a stump and then wach out for sprouting twigs. Any new twigs can easily be snipped off with secateurs. Then it will surely die if it cannot put out new leaves

 

Thats the way I got rid of a deformed pear tree, where the previous owners had wired the trunk to support, and a privet hedge. Worked fine -

 

Thank you all for your ideas and advice - have been out to take a look at the tree today and I think it will have to come down - but will replace it with something else.

 

I recently heard of copper nails being thumped into the stump. This supposedly, over time and with the help of rainfall turns into copper sulphate, or whatever (pardon me, not being a chemist).
Any thoughts about this method would be interesting.
Kind regards
Roy

 

I bet that's not good for the soil either!! :rolleyes: :D

 

Agree with Dendro. Ok so the stump finally decomposes but the copper debris will be there forever. What grows on the spoil heaps of old copper mines that are hundreds of years old? Not a lot.

 

We use copper flashing on roofs and around windows. Telephone lines are a copper alloy. Some underground water pipes are copper and rain, particularly acidic rain, disolves copper and it ends up in the ground.
I doubt if the residual copper from a half dozen nails distributed over the root system of a large tree is anything like the concentration leached from any of the above.
I've heard about trees being deliberately killed with copper nails, but I've got some doubts about how effective copper would be at speeding the decomposition of a stump and roots.
We had to cut down a flowering cherry as the roots were lifting a lawn. I just bored big holes in the stump and let it rot. I also lifted some sections of lawn and cut out the offending roots. It took 10 or 15 years to finally get the stump out and even then it was a struggle.

Cherry is a very dense wood and if left as an undrilled stump to support a climber should last for years and years.

Final comment on the use of copper. A local firm is marketing was is in essence copper flashing to go on the ridges of roofs in order to prevent build up of moss. It works just like using a copper based moss killer on a lawn, though the rain provides all the effort required.

 

Ok Dendrobe and Hornbeam, so too much copper in the soil or in the plants ain't a good thing but its one of those traditional "remedies" that has been used (and perhaps abused) within the last century and maybe more of horticulturae. I'm thinking that soil has a brain of its own and quite frankly, its an incredibly well developed brain - it sorts out problems and then moves on, all the better after the experience. Its kinda thinking...?? It develops.
Maybe food for thought...

DaveW - thanks for your info too! I would have thought that the more virulent growers of the tree world would easily overcome the abuse of copper nails. Being a horticulturalist myself (so 'they' say) I really love the idea of utilising the remaining stump as a potential feature, rather than considering its destruction.

Kind regards
Roy

 

Has anyone around here ever found a copper nail for sale? I have started to think this story is a myth. I'd like to see someone attempt to hammer one into a trunk without it bending as well.

 

Eminently practical answer as always, Jazid! :D :D :D

 

YES :D :D :D