DIY tree felling

mullmick

Hi there.
Despite the cold weather forecast for this weekend, we are attempting to tackle the garden,which has been relatively untouched since we moved in. The general approach will be to clear EVERYTHING we hate before putting out planting plan together.

We have two trees which are on our hit list, and if you can, I would like some advice on their removal.

One is a tree, now much to large for the small back garden, which also appeared pretty diseased. It is about 20 ft tall. I am not so worried about cutting this, but would like some advice on the best plan for stump removal.

Second is on of those "palm-esque" trees that every suburban garden in Dublin (in my area anyway) seems to have. Its about 6 ft tall, and it is now ready for departure from my garden. Are these hard to remove... are the roots deep?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

bmaxi

mullmick wrote:

Hi there.
Despite the cold weather forecast for this weekend, we are attempting to tackle the garden,which has been relatively untouched since we moved in. The general approach will be to clear EVERYTHING we hate before putting out planting plan together.

We have two trees which are on our hit list, and if you can, I would like some advice on their removal.

One is a tree, now much to large for the small back garden, which also appeared pretty diseased. It is about 20 ft tall. I am not so worried about cutting this, but would like some advice on the best plan for stump removal.

Second is on of those "palm-esque" trees that every suburban garden in Dublin (in my area anyway) seems to have. Its about 6 ft tall, and it is now ready for departure from my garden. Are these hard to remove... are the roots deep?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

There are a couple of options for stump removal, the easiest is to treat the stump with something like "Root-Out" which will eventually kill off the living tissue but this will take some time. If you need them out in a hurry then I'd say your only option is a tree surgeon to grind down or pull up the stump. The "palmy thing" is, I'd say, Cordyline which can have massive tap roots. It would be worth while checking to see what is causing the disease in the tree just in case it is honey fungus, in which case everything else you plant there will go the same way.

ircoha

what works best for me is to remove the roots by using a block and tackle and leaving as much as possible of the tree trunk in place :10-12 feet works best and dig around the tree roots. u can hitch the B+T to the base of the 'palmy' thing, which is not difficult to kill - the roots go straight down so are not really a problem.
of course if the tree is too deasead it wont take much of a strain