Treating a stump

[allanb]

I've had to have a fairly large tree cut down: a kind of leylandii, I think - a French friend calls it thuya.  It was mostly dead and probably unsafe.

I'm not going to try to get rid of the stump; I think it would cause too much damage.  So I'll just leave it and put a tub of flowers or something on it.  The question is: should I give it any kind of treatment first?  I don't want it to just slowly rot.

[Jonzjob]

It is a shame that the thuya, if that is what it was, has died because they are lovely trees, very pretty. Domage...

If it is just a stump then it will not re-grow, but I would be a bit carefull if you are thinking of putting a stump killer on it and there are any other trees or bushes that you want to keep within several yards. I did just that and put astump killer on the stump of a parasol pine that we had cut down. The result was that within 4 weeks another parasol pine about 10 feet away turned brown and died. The time scale was very short and although I was considering getting rid of that tree it came as a shock that it was killed by the same product. We now have a flower pot on the original stump and I took the centre out od=f the second stump, filled it with soil, put a small dry stone surround and it now has flowers growing out of it, sometimes!

If you can cut it almost level with the ground and you are capable with a chain saw you could hollow the centre, make sure that there are drainage slots in the periferie and fill it with soil and fowers as we have done?

[Quarmby]

I don't know where you are, but round here termites will find a tree stump pretty quickly and start to eat it. When they are through the queen will fly off to start a new nest, possibly in your house timbers. Just a thought.

[allanb]

[quote user="Quarmby"]I don't know where you are, but round here termites will find a tree stump pretty quickly and start to eat it. When they are through the queen will fly off to start a new nest, possibly in your house timbers. Just a thought.[/quote]

Thank you.  I certainly hadn't thought of that possibility.  I'm in Aquitaine, where I know termites can be a problem.

I suppose my question now is: is there something I can paint on the stump to repel termites?

[Quarmby]

If only it were that easy! Termites travel under the ground, and will attack the stump from underneath. I bored holes in mine, poured in BBQ fluid and gradually burned / hacked it away. It's a slow process.

[allanb]

[quote user="Quarmby"]Termites travel under the ground, and will attack the stump from underneath. [/quote]

That's cheating!

[Jonzjob]

That may be cheating Alby, but that how the little perishers work. They don't like the light you see [:-))]!!

That is the reason that the first discovery of them is when something falls down. They eat the inside out of the wood and leave a very fine surround.

Looks pretty, but not tooooooo strong![:-))]

[Alan Zoff]

It depends on the root system - and the availability of equipment - but I have found the best solution is a JCB. I was amazed at the ease with which one pulled the bottom sections and massive roots of really large trees out of our English garden. The operator told me to leave about a metre of trunk for him to work with and the machine did the rest. It simply clamped onto the base of the trunks and pulled straight up. Awesome.

It did disturb a lot of ground as the roots trailed all over the garden but we were replanting everything anyway and at least I knew the roots had gone for good. (It also brought down the neighbours' huge shed, complete with tiled roof, but we did warn them first and they said they were glad to see it go....)

We were fortunate that someone in our English village had a business using a JCB. I wish there was someone similar in the French village as I have several stumps to remove. (One cut off below lawn level seems to be resurfacing and will wreck the mower if I'm not careful.)

[Jo]

Tree stumps left to rot can encourage honey fungus in the Uk, not sure if it is a problem over here?[8-)]