On 24/02/19 09:24, Janet wrote:
In article , lid
says...
Anyone got any experience with these? There are lots available on Amazon
but there are some very poor reviews, mainly of those which really are
made of wire. There are better reviews of those made like chainsaws.
I have an old Cornus I have to dig up, and have limited access. I've cut
it down so there are only half-a-dozen trunks left; they are about 7 or
8 cm in diameter and 30 cm long (left purposely that length to help with
leverage). The main problem is that some of the roots go under a tarmac
drive. Previous experience removing a ceanothus suggests a lot of hard
work in on the way. I wondered about using a wire saw to cut through the
roots, as it should be possible to use a small trowel to dig a channel
under the roots wide enough to pass the wire saw through.
If you can trowel out a small access to the roots I'd use a small axe,
or loppers, to sever them. But before doing that, I'd treat the raw tops
of stumps with a systemic brushkiller, to make sure there's no
resurrection.
I'm ahead of you with the weedkiller! Earlier this week I drilled a
couple of dozen holes about 5 cm long from the sawn tops near the edges
and put in a few mls of glyphosate concentrate in each. With the warm
weather the sap should be rising and the glyphosate should be taken down
into the roots.
I'd used a small axe on the ceanothus roots, but it wasn't easy and I
had to be very careful to avoid damaging the paving which was barely 10
cm from the trunk. The cornus is even closer to granite setts edging the
drive. The roots are too wide for loppers (mine extend to about 40mm,
and anything wider is too difficult to cut through). One other
possibility is to use a power drill with woodbits and drill vertical
holes carefully in the roots, and then cut between the drill holes with
an old, but sharp, wood chisel. Unfortunately, where the cornus is the
previous owner had put down a weedproof membrane, and covered it with a
double layer of 2 - 5cm pebbles. Over the years somehow a few of these
have migrated under the membrane by the trunk, so I have to be very
careful to remove these before using an axe!
--
Jeff