Best way to kill off a tree stump?
 

So when I moved into this house 15 plus years ago the former owner had planted a couple of trees between the sidewalk and the street. Fast forward to last year and the roots had pretty much destroyed my sidewalk so I had them cut down last summer.

Now I have two big stumps that are still alive and I'm getting ready to drop $2500 to have the sidewalk replaced. I drilled a bunch of 1 inch holes in the stumps at the end of the summer and dumped something in the holes, but the beasts are still alive. I would burn the damn things, but the fire department would frown on such an activity. If I was in the country, I would blow them up with dynamite or just make a few pipe bombs to take them out, but obviously the neighbors would become restless when their windows blew out. :hmmm:

I checked into having someone come over with a stump grinder and they are WAY to pound of their services. So is their a good chemical out there to take these wooden bastards to the promised land that anyone has had success with? I hear good things about this but I honestly have no idea if this is going to take them out.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There is some powder I bought at the hardware store. Put it on the stump and it decays it. Results aren't immediate but it worked for me. Took about a season and then it was all out of there. Had to go back a few times to gradually remove the decayed wood though. If you put it on there more often than I did it probably works even quicker. Don't know if that would work well for really big stumps though.

Think it was something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Spectraci...20-4/202097353

Tordon if you can get it. If not 2-4D is labeled for it. You have to keep a towel saturated. I don't know how it's worked but it is labeled.

Guys have used gas. :shrug:

Cool, I dug into the subject a little bit and from what I was reading, there are products to kill the things and products to decay them. I need these things dead. That looks like a great product to decay them, but I'm not sure that will kill them. :hmmm:

Look no further...Tordon RTU will do the job. Picloram is wicked shit, it's commercial grade be careful with it.

I was hoping you would chime in, see my link above. I ordered two of them earlier this morning. So you think that will smoke them huh?

Great news, I'll be sure to glove up for the task. How quick does the stuff work?

Clearly what you need is antifreeze.

Heh, I wish I could get off that cheap. ROFL

**** stump grinding. Did that myself and now I have little spots where trees are trying to grow.

How fast it works depends on how fast its growing. It'll take few weeks this time of year.

Be the hell careful with it. It has a crazy long residual for broad leaves. I don't know what it will do to grass but it isn't good for it.

Well from what these guys are saying, if you drill some holes in what's left Tordon RTU should take care of it.

Yeah tordon is the answer. I never know what's available to people without applicator permits anymore.

A fresh cut into the stump during growing season, brush the chemical on the fresh cut. Consider it dead.

It would have to jump across the sidewalk to get on the main grass. Any roots that go under the sidewalk I plan to take out with my chain saw as well.

I like the sound of that. :D What I was going to do was drill out some fresh 1 inch holes and dump some in each hole, do you think that will take it out. These are about 36 inch stumps.

I've used this on some smaller stumps and it worked. just painted it on with a foam paint brush

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...=2V40FSSAUJ0I7

I'm surprised you don't blow them up, just because you can. :eek:

diesel fuel... soak it to to 3 days then set it on fire

Tordon is what my tree service uses when we can't get a stump cutter to the stump

I would love to, but no doubt the fire department would be over here graveling my ass about it.

Nice so you think drilling 1 inch holes in the beasts and dumping it into the holes will work?

Just paint it on, the product tranlocates through the trees vascular system. Drilling is a waste of time.

The thing is, the top of stumps are pretty hard at this point and I'm not sure it will soak in like it should. I would give it a fresh cut but I would need a bigger saw then I own to get that done. These things are about 36 inches.

Trust me, that's more my style.

Drill holes, fill with epsom salt then place a tarp over it to rob it of sunlight.

WTF isn't this in the landscaping thread!? Mod Abuse!!!:D

Dude, you should try killing a bougainvillea. Prettiest weed ever. Dynamite is the only way.

https://www.joyusgarden.com/wp-conte...illea-arch.jpg

We drilled holes in ours and poured tons of shit down the holes and covered the stump with it. I do not remember what it was.

2 weeks later we paid someone to grind down the stump as the HOA doesn't allow stumps to be present in the front yard for long per landscape guidelines (****ers).

The landscape thread has some knowledgeable posters. Check there. :D

That's exactly what I did and it seemed to thrive on it. Time to break out the big guns.

what trees were they? i planted a couple of quick growers for shade 4 years ago and i dont want leave a mess for myself down the road.

When I was in Africa, I saw wild elephants. They would push over trees to make it easier to eat the leaves. It was kind of amazing. They'd put their head against a reasonable-sized tree and just push the tree over.

If you hadn't already cut down the trees, this would be a fun suggestion. But I don't think elephants can push over a stump.

I know right! ROFL I guess I missed the landscaping thread, seriously.

Cottonless cottonwoods. :banghead:

Yeah that sucks.

Now you tell me!

Tordon has killed whatever I ever needed killing when it comes to brush, trees, multiflora roses etc. Drilling some small holes around the edges would make sure it penetrated but you shouldn't need all that much. Spray/paint brush the top wet and a squirt in the holes should do it. If that doesn't kill it I'd consider moving.

The following story will not hold any advice for you, but it is related.

When we bought our house in 2009, there was a tree in the yard that I wanted to take down. I took a saw to it, and cut it down at about stomach/chest height. From that point, I thought maybe I'd make some sort of standing table there out of it, using the tree as the base. So I kinda just let it sit for a year.

That 4th of July, we were shooting fireworks, and I started using the stump of that tree to sit them on while firing. An ember must have floated down by the very base, because the next day when I got home from work, the stump had the tiniest bit of smoke rising from it. Upon closer inspection, it was slowly starting to burn away.

I chainsawed it down to about shin level, and let the thing slowly burn itself away. Took it about a week, never saw a flame, could barely even notice any embers. Burned itself completely up. Even the roots.

Well, it sounds like I got lucky and bought the right stuff.

ROFL :thumb:

**** em all to death

being an equipment operator, i recomend a cat 325 excavator. good luck.

Is it as big as this one ?

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I rented a stump grinder together with a bunch of neighbors for a day. $200 I think.
We ground every stump in the neighborhood.

The best way to kill anything is to make it listen to Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe's show "Undisputed" for about 5 to 10 minutes. Don't go any longer than that, though. That would be torture, and that tree stump hasn't done anything to deserve that.

Hmm? I don't know if anyone rents one around here but it may be worth looking into. After I grind it down to a shadow of its former self, I can dump the death juice on anything that's left just to be sure.

Since you have neighbors I guess the call Frazod suggestion is out.

I would think cottonwood being a soft wood would soak that poison right up and die away. You could always bury them in leaf piles to tempt the kids in the area to take them out. ;)

If I had one of those laying around, that would be the direction to go.

LMAO If it was fall that would be a good bet. Watching the little bastards hitting my leaf pile/monster stumps followed by an air born Bo Duke would be quality entertainment.

i would say termites will do the work for free :D

Read some Wendler to them

This is what I did and learned from several farmers. Take a drill with an extended bore bit that is as long as you can get. Anywhere from 8 inches to 16 inches is ideal in length and make sure the diameter of the bit is 1/2 to a full inch in diameter. Drill a bunch of holes as deep as the bit will go all over surface of the stump. A heavily pock marked look. Then take a can of diesel fuel and pour it all over the stump filling up these holes and then light it. It will then start to smoke and burn slowly. Continue to monitor and refill the holes if need be to continue the slow burn. Within a few days you should be able to take a pick, axe and shovel and it will come right out.

Get an axe and splitting maul. Spend an hour each day chipping away at it.

The ladies will love your lumberjack appeal, as well as the muscles and self-confidence that come with it.

Drink plenty of whiskey as this will be a multi-day project.

You can rent a stump grinder and do it yourself rather than pay someone for their labor.

You can also place a BBQ over the stump and "burn" it for cooking. There is usually a loophole in burning laws for cooking or fires for warmth.

Tordon is available locally at Orscheln 's. Last summer it was cheaper there than indicated on the Amazon link you sent.

Remember, for it to work, it is best applied to fresh cut living bark. Pouring it on a dead stump will do no good. Find the living portion, make a cut, & apply. It will die.

The Tordon bottle is a squirt bottle with a three-hole nozzle. Just open, invert & squeeze. It is bright blue so you can see where you put it.

Good stuff.

Be a man. Go buy flannel and an axe. Chop that shit to non existence. Then pour what ever liquid you want on it and bury it. You will also get some exercise in.

My neighbors removed a stump by placing a burn barrel over it at night time and a leaf blower to the side of it. Thing was gone the next day. Most of the neighbors did not know.

Bwana....Tordon RTU is not restricted and available in small quantity. The key is a fresh cut exposed cambium layer. Then just squirt it all around the tree stump. If a bit drips down the bark side thats ok. You can do any time of the year. It id formulated with ingredients that will essentially mix with the sap and will be drawn into root system. Some species are more susceptible than others. I didnt read entire thread to see what they were....

I would be all over it, but these damn things are right on the street.

Yeah It looks like I bought the right stuff for sure.

I called the rental outfit to check on the price of a stump grinder and they are $200 a day. I was excited until he told be he wouldn't recommend using it on anything bigger that 20 inches. One stump is 34 and the other is 36. :shake:

I was shooting the shit with one of my neighbors and asked him if he knew anyone that grinds stumps. He didn't but called another guy that hooked me up with a guy he used. The stump wrangler came over and told me if I paid him in cash and did the chip cleanup that he would do them both for $275. The two other guys I talked to were closer to $800-850. I asked when can you get started? They should be a memory by the end of this weekend. :D I just didn't want to chance pouring a new sidewalk and having a rouge root around that would heave my new sidewalk.

Why are you asking me ?






Oh

Tell everyone your stumps are Muslims. Let them devise innovative and efficient ways to kill them.

Yea that's an excessive price for just having them do stump grinding.

We had a 30 ft tree cut down, taken away, stump killer added and stump ground 2 weeks later for $500.

Normally after grinding, you leave the chips mounded up & they rot down to level. In this case, rake out the chips from under where the sidewalk will be then backfill & compact the dirt or baserock.

If you pour the sidewalk over a layer of chips, they will rot away leaving a void under the sidewalk.

Which will proceed to crack and fall in.

You make a blood oath with a squirrel. You swear to protect his nuts in exchange for his solving of your tree problem.

Or that their names are Jesus and Maria and the government will pay for them to go south of the border.

Will do thanks.

Oh no, never! We have an understanding, they eat apples from my tree, I shoot them. :D

On a side note, here is a picture of one of the beasts.

I took out a good 3 foot wide hedge apple tree, drilled holes and dumped tree killer on it and got tired of waiting, ended up building a fire over it with a bag of charcoal. Whatever you do and kill the stump, eventually it will leave a sink hole and you will have to fill in later, hope that doesn't screw up your new walk way.

I think I'll be all good with the sidewalk as long as the stumps go bye bye. One thing is for sure, if I do nothing the new sidewalk is going to heave back up. I would burn them out in a heartbeat if they weren't right there by the street.

We have a place that rents stump grinders. Is that an option for you?

It is but.........see post 60.

this ^^

i'm a city-bred rat and i had some trees i couldn't kill in my yard. iowanian turned me on to tordon. got it at the tractor store at 291 and 23rd street. waited til spring, made a fresh cut across the trunk and applied the awesomeness that is chemistry...

then the rotting stuff - a year (or two if really big stumps) and they are completely disappeared (like a russian dissident politician ) and they have stayed that way!!

if i can do it, i'm pretty sure bwana can hadle it, just my $.02 worth...

don't have to cut it all the way across the trunk... :shake:

just cut some nice wedges and pour/brush on the majik sauce...

it will still work... :D

well, at least it's less obvious than leaving old motor blocks by the curb covered with leaves... :)

Heh

Stick a fork in it.......

It's done..........

Murderer.