Thanks to everyone for ideas, warnings and experiences. Lots of good
sensible and interesting advice given.

I think that I might have underestimated the strength of the roots and
overestimated the power of the car before making the original post!

Coupled with the dangers of ropes snapping and the potential energy
contained by them being released suddenly with a danger to life and
property (sorry to hear about the window Dave :-) ) and the possibility
of damage to drains etc., I have decided that they will just be reduced
to stumps and left for a couple of years to weaken the roots before any
extraction is undertaken. Thanks Phil. L for the suggestion.

I presume that these stumps will not need chemical treatment to kill
them off as I believe that conifer stumps will just die anyway. I wonder
whether chemical killing would hasten the weakening of the roots?

Once again, this group has come to my rescue and brought me down to earth!

Cheers

Steve

Steve wrote:
Thanks to everyone for ideas, warnings and experiences. Lots of good
sensible and interesting advice given.

I think that I might have underestimated the strength of the roots and
overestimated the power of the car before making the original post!

Coupled with the dangers of ropes snapping and the potential energy
contained by them being released suddenly with a danger to life and
property (sorry to hear about the window Dave :-) ) and the possibility
of damage to drains etc., I have decided that they will just be reduced
to stumps and left for a couple of years to weaken the roots before any
extraction is undertaken. Thanks Phil. L for the suggestion.

I presume that these stumps will not need chemical treatment to kill
them off as I believe that conifer stumps will just die anyway. I wonder
whether chemical killing would hasten the weakening of the roots?

Light fires on them. Thats what I did. They smouldered down a long way.

That was after a year or so,

I actually took mine down with a hand saw..big two handed thing. It was
about 2 ft diameter.

Cut it flush with the ground, left it, burnt it, and covered it.

Ive removed loads of stumps with a mini digger tho. Trench round while
snapping any lateral roots, then dig under and pull. Usually it comes
before the digger tips over. Great fun. I love mindiggers, For a 100
quid a weekend, they are great toys to play with in the garden.



Once again, this group has come to my rescue and brought me down to earth!

Cheers

Steve

The Natural Philosopher wrote:


Light fires on them. Thats what I did. They smouldered down a long way.

That was after a year or so,

I actually took mine down with a hand saw..big two handed thing. It was
about 2 ft diameter.

Cut it flush with the ground, left it, burnt it, and covered it.

That would be the easiest way and we love a good bonfire!

We will have to see whether our neighbours have bonfires first though.
At the present place, we have had a good few with no complaints. I can
understand people's objections to bonfires though, especially long
lasting ones as would be needed to burn away the roots.

Ive removed loads of stumps with a mini digger tho. Trench round while
snapping any lateral roots, then dig under and pull. Usually it comes
before the digger tips over. Great fun. I love mindiggers, For a 100
quid a weekend, they are great toys to play with in the garden.

Thanks, another good suggestion. Sounds like fun too!

Steve

Steve wrote:

I presume that these stumps will not need chemical treatment to kill
them off as I believe that conifer stumps will just die anyway. I wonder
whether chemical killing would hasten the weakening of the roots?

I had three (smallish, say a foot in diameter) trees in the back garden
once I had cut down the trees I left the stumps protruding eight inches
or so but drilled them (22-35mm holes) and filled these with a propriety
stump killer used the stumps in the mean time as little stools
(obviously not while the stump killer was still in evidence) for my
children . Once the kids were too big /stumps too small, removed them
by cutting out any roots that were accessible (say twenty minutes each).
Have found one of the (very cheap) alligator type saws {
http://preview.tinyurl.com/y9gd67 } and a pack of wood blades come in
very handy cutting the roots, , can be bought for this particular job
and dumped after.


--
www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nileh1ZPGq4

In article , Soup
wrote:
and filled these with a propriety
stump killer used the stumps in the mean time as little stools

Ammonium Sulphamate.
If you've got a friend in the chemical trade, you should be able
to pick this up for a lot, lot less than the proprietary killers.
Drill the holes to the size of some doweling (e.g., an old broom
handle), pack the sulphamate into the hole drilled into the stump, glue
or nail a section of dowel into the top of the hole, to keep
interfering fingers out.

--
Aidan
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:18 GMT, but posted later.