Knowledge Nuggets

Now that you’ve cut down your tree, bush, or shrub, the hard part is over right? Wrong! The REAL hard work is just beginning. Hopefully after reading the tips below you’ll be able to get that stump out of the ground with no problems. You have a few different options. Read through, and select the best option for you.

Regardless of the option you go with, you’re going to need to be mindful of the utility lines. If you think that there might be utility lines near the stump, call your local utility services (water, electric, cable, gas, phone), and have them come out and mark the location of the lines, they should come out and do it for free.

Pull it out with a Car or Tractor

While this is one of the more popular methods, it’s a bad idea! This is a great way to break an axle, twist the frame, or even worse. Not to mention that you’re most likely going to tear the yard up around the stump. If you’re stubborn enough to go ahead and try it, here’s what you do. First, make sure to remove all of the dirt from around the stump and the roots. Once all of the dirt is cleared, you can tie a strong rope of chain around the stump, hook the other end to your hitch, and go to town. Just don’t say that you haven’t been warned when your axle is lying on the lawn next to the stump.

Manual Removal

With a little bit of elbow grease, you should be able to coax most small to medium sized stumps out of the ground without a problem. With larger stumps, your probably going to want to think about renting a stump grinder (see below), or hiring a pro(see below), To start, you’re going to need two tools:

• A heavy spade
• A landscape bar (pic) or a pickaxe (pic) – Both of these are cutting tools that will be used to sever the roots and pry the root bulb out of the ground. Make sure you wear steel tip boots when using these tools, they tend to go in unexpected directions at times. If you don’t have either of these, your might be able to get by with a sawzall with a few cheap blades on hand.

If you haven’t already cut the tree down, you are probably going to want to leave a few feet of the stump to give you some leverage to pry it out of the ground.

Start by using your spade to dig a trench around the stump. The further away from the stump that you dig, the easier it will be to remove, but the bigger the hole you will have. For a small to medium sized stump, around a foot away from the stump should be sufficient. You don’t need to worry about cutting through the roots with the spade; we’ll take care of that in the next step.

Once you have your trench dug all the way around, put the spade down, and pickup your landscape bar. Jam the landscape bar into the trench to cut the roots. Let the weight of the tool do the work. Keep going around the trench with the landscape bar until you are able to pry the entire stump out of the ground with the landscape bar. If it doesn’t come fairly easily, keep stabbing around the trench with the landscape bar, it will come out eventually. In the absence of a landscape bar, its possible to use a sawzall to go around the stump and cut the roots. Just be sure you have plenty of time, and extra cheap blades on hand because you will break a few.

Landscape over them

Another simple option is to just landscape right over the stump. Simply cut the stump as short as possible and throw some mulch or dirt right on top of it. This is easier done with stumps from smaller bushes and shrubs.

Stump Grinder

With any large size stump, you’re most likely going to want to rent a stump grinder. A stump grinder will allow you to quickly turn any stump into sawdust. For local rental places, check out the Google ads on this page, you should see a few listings for local rental shops.

More on stump grinders…

Give away

Surprisingly, there are a lot of people out there that would be glad to receive a free tree (or shrub). So glad in fact, that they would be willing to come do all of the work to remove the tree for you, and possibly back fill the hole as well. Obviously, this means that you still need to have the tree, and not just a stump in the ground. Ask around to see if anyone is looking for a tree. Ask your friends, family, neighbors, and also, try posting on craigslist. You might be happily surprised that you don’t need to do a thing, or spend a dollar to have your tree removed.

Chemical

If you have some patience, chemicals (most notably, Roundup) are a good way to easily get rid of a stump. This works by speeding up the rotting process. Drill a few holes into the stump, and pour in the chemicals. The chemicals will be transported throughout the stump to the roots. This process might take several iterations. After time, the stump should break down enough to be able to pull out.

Fire

While I haven’t used this method myself, I have heard of people piling up scrap wood on top of the tree stump, lighting it up, and keeping the fire going until the stump is gone. Be sure to check the local regulations before using this method.

Tree stump planter

If you want to get creative, you can hollow out the stump, and create a nice, rustic planter out of it. Just use a chisel to hollow out the center of the stump. Fill the center with potting soil, and thats it, you have your planter.

Hire a pro

Hiring a pro is always a good solution. In many cases, hiring a pro is going to be cheaper that doing the work yourself. For example, If you have one stump to remove, you might need to rent a stump grinder for a full day. A pro might be able to get this done in less than an hour, at a cheaper rate than the stump grinder costs. Also, without the right tools, some jobs might take you 10 times longer than they should. Sometimes your just better off spending a little bit of money, and having a pro do the work. Again, the Google ads on this page have been setup to show service local to your area. Take a look through the list to get some ideas of whats in your area.