GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

31-07-2005, 04:40 PM

wrote:
How to deal with this ?

My aunt has a house in California...

She has had the home over 18 years now.

There are 2 trees whose roots are lifting the concrete pretty high.

She has been told that she needs to get rid of the trees and that
there is a "special something" that needs to be applied on the cut
trunk ...or something...

Would anyone know what needs to be applied to the cut trunk to
permanently kill the trees?

Can anyone suggest a better way to get rid of these 2 trees ?

What do people normally do when the roots of a tree lift the
concrete
? How does one rectify such a

It's not always useful to follow UK advice in American conditions,
but some things are constant, and this is one of them. You don't need
anything special to kill the stumps: just bore a number of holes, and
fill them with potassium nitrate or sodium chlorate. The chemical
will make the stumps burn nicely some weeks later when they've really
dried out. You can also get a paint-on stump killer from your garden
supplier, which is less work, but I don't think that will help
burning..

A tree-surgeon could charge you anything up to maybe three thousand
dollars, if my Florida friend's experience is typical. So, if you're
going to do it yourselves, make sure the stump is four or five feet
high: that way it will be easier to haul out with a winch, once
you've cut through the roots. Alternatively, you could just leave
short stumps and use them as a nice garden feature -- maybe something
to sit on, or grow plants over, or place pot-plants on.

I have to mention that cutting down a big tree isn't always safe for
those with no experience; and maybe the tall stump approach is even
trickier.

I assume you mean the concrete is the yard or driveway, not the
foundations of the house. If it is, I'd just leave it to settle back
as the years go by: no serious harm will have been done (unless
drains are involved), and the concrete can be patched once it's
levelled out.

--
Mike.