This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
How to dig up large shrub roots
lovegardening77
Posts: 332
Any tips on how to dig/get rid of old shrub roots? It's an old hebe stump , I've tried to loosen soil around it but I only managed half an hour before I realised that I wasn't getting anywhere????. I'm exhausted!
0
Posts
Dig a trench around it, then sort of tunnel underneath it with your spade, severing the roots with secateurs if your spade isn't sharp enough
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
When I bought this house there was a stump, some sort of pine I suspect. Took me over a month with spade, trowel, axe, saw, sledgehammer and crowbar to remove the bugger. It filled the back of my Freelander back then and took two of us to lift it.
A bricklayers hammer is great at freeing up roots and then get them with the loppers.
I wouldn't be without my mattock for this sort of work.
The brickids hammer is a more dainty version of a mattock!
Use a Matlock and metal fence pole that used to remove concrete post. It's possibly never the best time to remove a shrub but when I have planned it I will remove most of the soil around the shrub to expose the roots just before the offset of winter. Cut in to as much of the roots as possible and then leave over winter. Let the frost get to the exposed roots over winter and come early spring it should be a lot easier to remove
I may have shouted something along the lines of 'got you, you b*stard!'...