I moved in to a new house last September that had 2 tree stumps in the middle of the lawn (for some reason the previous owner had just cut the trees down).

I treated the stumps with the stuff thats supposed to wrot them away. The stumps have now in a sense dried out, but not wrotted to the extent I've managed to chip some of them away with a small axe.

Both stumps are about 1ft wide now, and the axe isnt really doing much. I've tried another method of drilling large holes, pouring in flammable liquid and setting fire to it, which again worked abit but not great!

What should I try next?

Ta

As they are just tiny stumps you can't use anything to pull them now so I would suggest just digging them out. If you can find out what make and model tree they are, you can find out what root structure they will have so you know where the biggies are to hack/prise/dig/pray out

Dig. (a lot) 😯

Dynamite.

Stumpgrinder.

Dig down around them Trace roots back and cut thru them where they are small enough eventually the stump will come loose. Lots of hard work

Or hire a stumpgrinder to mash em up

I'd get it drilled out proper, cost, but you sit back with a beer and watch!

You could rent a stump-grinder but if you want properly rid of them then you need to dig. Dig about 500mm from the stump, when you find a root chop it off at the edge of the hole and close to stump. Use a pick mattock to dig. Use a bow saw or long handled loppers for cutting. Keep digging, there are lots of roots. Its quite a job, though. Might be better getting someone pro in. Mine took a lot of man hours, although it was bigger.

my brother and I pulled one out from his garden by digging as much as we could around it and then tied chains to it and attached them to his car. Bit of reversing down the drive pulled it out.

Kev

and then tied chains to it and attached them to his car. Bit of reversing down the drive pulled it out.

That is one of those things you need to film just in case it goes badly wrong – at least that way you get £250 from You've Been Framed to go towards the cost of a new bumper, fence, wall, window, dog….

Here's mine.

I've chopped up the trunk but still need to get rid of the stump. Its very heavy

but still need to get rid of the stump. Its very heavy

There's a big hole there – why don't you just bury it? 😉

I have wondered about hiring a stump grinder, but at £75 for a day it appears quite alot…. then again it would save alot of effort! Also they look pretty dangerous machines in operation, has any one used one?

Blowing them up is fun. Can leave a bit of a hole in your garden tho. I suspect detonators might be a bit tricky to get these days but a bag of nitrate fertilizer soaked in diesel makes a nice bang

That'll be TJ ringing alarm bells at GCHQ 🙂

What speaker wire for rigging a homemade detonater then?

I think that would go down a bomb. it will blow the neighbours mind. I wonder if they would be up for it. lets not beat around the bush. I think tho that the government controls the sale of detonators now

🙂

My wife has very redneck "rellies" in the Outback of Oz. Her great uncle blew up an entire tree using TNT – the whole thing took off and nearly landed back on him. Doh! Did the job though.

Pry/wrecking bar, long handled grafter, pruning saw and axe. MTFU and dig it out (have done lots during trailbuilding) or pay daft money to keep your hands (relatively) clean and not ruin the manicure 😉

dug a few out of our garden last year, pretty straight forward – cutting through the roots (say 0.5-1m around the edge of the stump but it'll be quite obvious which ones you'll have to cut when you do it!) and then prizing out with a long bar (i use a garden fork) would be best tactic. those small fold up saws that look like a big penknife are useful to cut through awkward to reach roots – i got one from wilko, great for trail maintenance too 🙂

Blowing them up is fun. Can leave a bit of a hole in your garden tho. I suspect detonators might be a bit tricky to get these days but a bag of nitrate fertilizer soaked in diesel makes a nice bang

reverse bias a medium sized electrolytic capacitor and wait for the bang 🙂

I took 28 leylandi (sp?) out of my back garden. They don't have big roots though. Dig a trench around them and wiggle them. If you are lucky you will have enough stump to get some leverage.

I discovered after getting the first one out that it is a whole lot easier if you leave a 5 foot stump as you can wiggle much more easily

I once pulled one out with a Landrover and a chain,big Cherry it was,been in a good 35 yrs.came out like a really easy comy outy thing.

Speak to your local tree surgeon. Either he will have a stump grinder or know the local grinder operative. They are big nasty pieces of machinery and someone will usually come and do the job for you – leaving nowt but a pile of sawdust for you to dig in.

+1 tootall. I've spent many an hour behind manual stump grinders. If its blunt you'd prolly wish you spent the time to dig out.

For the cost of the days hire someone will get them done for you in a fraction of the time

Whilst we were out in the park one time in my wife's home town in the US, two city workers came along with a truck and started cutting up a small (10-12" diameter trunk maybe) tree. They cut off a load of branches, fed them into the chipper, then cut the tree down and chucked that in too. Unfortinately I didn't see what they did with the stump, but when we came back it was as if the tree had never existed. They'd even swept up all the leaves.

Never did find out why they'd done it.

Stumpbusters.co.uk

Charge approx 60 quid for stump (or stumps totalling) up to 2 feet, then charge per foot over and above that. I've used them twice now, money well spent.

doynamoight

Nobeer – Thanks for the link, they are coming round next week and doing 2 stumps for £85 !

Just done one this morning. Hired a mini digger for £100. Very quick to do and lots of fun! Just dig a large hole around the stump then use the digger bucket to lever from underneath.