How Can I Easily Remove a Tree Stump?

Does someone have a simple method of removing a tree stump?

Please advise.
Thanks.

S. Gardner

Answers:

How Can I Easily Remove a Tree Stump?

I don't know if any of this will help because I'm trying to kill my ligustrums and people say I should cut down to the stump first.

To kill the stump, I've heard several things:

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1. Pour gasoline on it, apparently the gas doesn't need to be set on fire.
   
2. Pour antifreeze on it.
   
3. Drive a nail in it. My mother is a wonderful gardener and she says a regular nail, not picture hanger, nail will do it. I've also heard it has to be a copper nail.

Here are some others:

1. Drill holes in the stump and pour Roundup on it, then drill holes into the freshly cut stump and pour herbicide (brush killer? apparently Ortho makes one) into the holes.
   
2. Pour bleach on it.
   
3. Pour salt on it.
   
4. From the Ft. Worth, TX, USA Nature Center: cut plants to the ground and treat them with 3:7 diesel mix. The active ingredient is triclopyr is not a restricted herbicide and can be purchased by anyone. They mix the dilution in a dropper bottle and two or three drops on the cut stump will do the job with low residual. I haven't a clue of what all this means; I'm just repeating what I found in my research.
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5. Pour liquid car wax on it.
   
6. Apply Brush-Be-Gone (don't know where to buy this), which is a little stronger than Roundup. Apparently there's a foam option on the sprayer and it clings best.
   
7. Pour a 'solution of Epsom salt' on it. Unfortunately, it didn't say what the solution was made out of, but I bet you could try it dry or mixed with water, or maybe make a paste out of it.
   
8. Pour ice cream salt on the stump.
   
9. Look for something called "Stump Rid", or something along that line - my research didn't elaborate on the name of the stuff.
   
10. Cover the stump with a black plastic feed store bucket and put something heavy on the bucket so it won't fall over. Apparently, these buckets are virtually free at the feed stores. No light, no life.
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11. Buttermilk and salt, I don't have any info on this because someone used it to kill a corkscrew willow in a sewage line. It did kill the tree, but didn't clear the sewage line!
    
12. Caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) solution will kill the stump. 1 part caustic soda and 2 parts water and pour it on the stump.
    
13. On this site I've heard that 'spirits of salt', hydrochloric acid, would work. I'm definitely not doing that one.

A lot of people said you'd likely have to repeat the process more than once.

Would you do us all a great favor and if you try any of these, would you please print your results as to what was successful or not? That would be really nice of you!

Good luck! (06/04/2010)

By metroplex

How Can I Easily Remove a Tree Stump?

You've got to kill the stump first, or it will grow back. The first post has tons of ways to do that in it. Personally, I bought some brush killer (Tractor Supply Store, Home Depot/Lowe's may carry it, any farm specialty store will have it), took a drill and put several deep holes in the stump, and added some brush killer.

You can also strip off sections of the bark and paint it on with a paint brush. This solution works best if the stump actually has a few leaves left on it. If it's still growing somewhere, it will absorb the poison better.

To remove it:

I've heard you can use a drill bore to cut a large hole in the stub and fill it with high nitrogen fertilizer. This will eventually burn/decompose the stump. Kind of like composting. Takes a while, though.

My neighbor uses this technique to (mostly) completely remove the stub and kill it off.

Make a small wire circle/basket big enough to fit around the stump with a few inches to spare on either side. Pour a bag or two of charcoal in, light it, and let it burn until it goes out. Repeat if large stump or isn't as gone as you'd like.

The only other thing you can do without having someone come and remove it for you that I know of is to dig down as far as you can stand around the stump once you've killed it, and cut through it below the soil level and just fill the hole back in. This is a lot of work, though.

If you decide that you can wait a while for it to break down or you're into birding, here are some alternatives to full removal.

Bore out the middle of the stump, fill it with dirt, and plant something you like in the stump. Your favorite flowers, flowering vine, a running vegetable, anything that doesn't need a ton of root space or is an annual will work. Just keep repeating this process yearly and the stump will eventually rot away. In the mean time, it will add some beauty to your yard.

Along those same lines, you can also bore out the top of the stump to about one inch and fill it with water to use as a birdbath if you have any interest in that kind of thing. Alternatively, you can place seeds along it and use as a bird feeder. (06/05/2010)

By Casey