On Feb 9, 2:54 pm, Janet Baraclough
wrote:
The message .com
from "lwhaley" contains these words:

A garden with two 18" trees but no gate??

Yes, why not? I've seen scores of city tenement gardens with much
bigger trees, and no gate, in older parts of UK cities. In Edinburgh, a
rectangle of tenement buildings was commonly built (in granite, lasts
forever) around an inner court. The inner court is divided by walls and
or iron railings, into small areas beloning to each tenement. The only
accesses to the gardens are through the buildings, via a winding stone
stair going down through the basement (or, a more modern fire-escape
from upper storeys).

Such back yards are at least a hundred years old, and the trees in them
which are not much younger, may be as high as the building.

Here's the problem with your scenario. We are talking about stumps
not trees. If we have a stump then we can assume that the tree was
removed. Access sufficient to remove such large trees would also
suffice for the much smaller stump grinder so any option which exists
for getting the grinder into the yard if they could get those large
trees out.

I will grant that there may be a very narrow situation where such a
thing would be impossible. Maybe the tree was removed with a crane.
Maybe there is a masonry fence with absolutely no gate. Then again,
maybe the poster made up the whole thing to get idiots like you and me
to argue it. That's a lot of maybes.

Considering the overall quality of the posts on this forum and on
usenet in general I believe the odds favor the troll. The two
standard ways to remove a stump are grinding or digging. I perform
these tasks routinely on my place and they are not difficult much less
impossible. I assure you that the machine in question is not a large
one and takes up little space, far less than the trees described. I
rent when I want a stump grinder so it is true that you need a truck
or car with a hitch. You can also hire a service which will grind
it.

There are other less common options which have been mentioned here and
on many other threads. Most involve drilling holes and filling with
fertilizer. Burning your stump can be a pleasure if you have a
bonfire planned anyway.

You can ignore your stumps and I usually do. Most species will rot in
place in a few years nothing wrong with that. Other species will put
out suckers from the stump or root system and they are more
persistent. In any case thank you for your opinion and all the
best.