How Do I Know When to Remove a Stump?

You that stump in your backyard for a long time, haven’t you? Or, maybe you just moved in and now that stump is an eyesore. Perhaps you had a tree removed years ago and it’s left a stamp that was once kind of an attractive yard piece but now it’s starting to decay and is more a hazard than anything? So, how do you know when to remove the stump and what should you do about it?

If the stump is hazardous a danger to children or pets, it’s time to remove it. The kids running around the yard and tripping over? What is the neighbor kid trips over it? Are you liable? Yes. Tree stumps can also damage or lawn more if you had one when you’re mowing the lawn. If it’s become more of a hazard then it is a conversation piece, it’s time to take it out.

Stumps can actually cause new tree growth. We have several willows around the Pacific Northwest that if you chop them down the just grow another one right on top. I’ve had a neighbor that’s chop down their Willow tree three times and it’s still grown well over 25 feet each time. It’s time to remove that thing permanently so that it doesn’t grow back.

How Do I Know When to Remove a Stump?

Is it a pain to maneuver around? Unless it’s in the back 40 or up against a fence where you never get to anyway, stumps can just be in the way. Are you weeding around in or mowing around it every week? It’s probably time to get rid of it permanently.

Stumps attract insects. This might be one of your number one reasons to get rid of that stump. The decaying tree takes a long time to walk away completely and in the meantime can attract beetles, termites, and other wood boring pests. While in your yard may not seem like a big deal, they can eventually move on to your house.

The stump is just not pretty anymore. I remember that Shel Silverstein book ‘The Giving Tree’ with a tree that gave everything throughout the life of the boy even a place to sit when he was old and the tree had been cut down. But after the boy passed on, that stump got old and ugly. As Paul Harvey once said, the rest of the story is that the next homeowner ripped that sucker out.

We are several ways of taking care of stumps in your backyard. The most common way is to simply grind it down. In doing so, it leaves you precious mulch and wood chips depending on the edge of the stump. Give us a call for information on stump grinding and removal in Snohomish, Bothell, and surrounding Snohomish County towns and cities.

Image by Philip Halling [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons