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timtsb

Fix areas where trees were removed

timtsb
9 years ago

Part of my fall renovations include fixing about 7-8 spots where trees once stood. What's left of the stumps are robbing my soil of nitrogen so the grass is thin, light green, and prone to weeds. I'm planning on digging out the old soil and replacing with good top soil before overseeding. My question is, if I put a layer of Milorganite, say 1/2" thick, directly on top of the stump before backfilling with topsoil, will that feed the rotting stump and keep the soil above in good shape so I can actually grow some good grass in these spots?

Comments (13)

  • beckyinrichmond
    9 years ago

    If you're not grinding up the stumps and removing the chips, your best bet is to try to get the stumps to rot faster. The way to do that is keep them wet. Spray them with a hose frequently. Do not bury them. Exposure to the air will help. It will still take years.

  • timtsb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    The company that removed the trees did grind the stumps, but either there's still some left down there, or they left the hole full saw dust/wood chips. If I find a stump not far under the surface I plan on hacking at it with a chainsaw and ax. Best case scenario, though, there are huge roots around it. I'm just curious if loading it up with Milorganite makes sense or is a waste of money.

    Morpheus? Dchall? A penny for your thoughts?

  • morpheuspa (6B/7A, E. PA)
    9 years ago

    >>A penny for your thoughts?

    Today, you'd be overpaying. Badly. So I'll give them to you free.

    Tree stumps are a friggin' nightmare, as you've discovered. Fortunately, there's no real need to dig out and replace.

    Undoubtedly (and not their fault as it's not easy to avoid), the grinding process reduced the top pieces of stump and root to sawdust. Which will decay faster than wood chips and trunk will, but will also deplete nitrogen faster and worse.

    Your instinct to head for the Milorganite is a good one. Feed that area at double or triple rate--that will be more than enough to feed your lawn plus supply excess nitrogen to the bacteria to continue the decay process. You can go higher than that if the lawn will tolerate it (mine successfully tolerates spot feedings in the five times normal range).

    Re-feed any time you notice the color starting to yellow out, or that growth slows through fall and spring (I'd cut back in summer to give the grass the break it wants).

    Milorganite isn't absolutely required here--synthetics will do just as well, as would almost any high-nitrogen organic like soybean meal or blood meal. But Milo or another organic will give you a nice long release time instead of a synthetic's flash in the pan. Still, you could trickle in a bit of synthetic nitrogen weekly and that would work.

    And I agree with BeckyBeck. Keep the area damp down below (you can and should let the top four inches dry out) to increase decay speed. With you adding nitrogen, it'll really accelerate the repair.

    It'll take several years, but the tree stump will eventually rot away. You'll likely need to add small amounts of top soil every now and again as the soil settles due to that--a quarter inch at a time can be safely applied right onto the grass without harming it.

  • beckyinrichmond
    9 years ago

    I thought you were dealing with stumps, but if they were ground up, what you're dealing with is wood chips and sawdust (possibly) and roots. The wood chips and sawdust should have been removed and the hole filled up topsoil. Was that done? There's nothing much to do about roots; they just have to gradually decay. Like Morpheus said, you can add topsoil in shallow amounts if the ground in certain areas starts sinking because of the decay of the roots. You don't want to add too much at a time or you'd smother the grass. If the chips were left in place and there is just a bit of soil over top lots of wood chips, I'd consider digging them out and filing the hole with topsoil. And replanting grass there. Digging out chips by hand is harder than you think. Use power equipment if at all possible. If instead of chips, you really do have a stump just below ground level (in other words the stump grinder didn't do his job properly), complain to the tree company and get them to finish the job. And be sure to get them to remove the chips when they grind the stump.

  • dchall_san_antonio
    9 years ago

    I'd be inclined to dig down looking for sawdust or chips. They won't rot under the surface. 20 years ago I buried a stump under compost thinking that would rot it away. It didn't. I unburied it about 5 years ago and it was solid as the day I buried it. Then I got the idea to get the rotting process going. We have high humidity but it is not high enough all the time to rot trees. I bought a misting nozzle like they use to mist the air at outdoor restaurants. I turned that on and let it run for several weeks. Eventually I saw some fungus spots and mushrooms sprout on the trunk. Then I turned off the mister and let it go. About 18 months later it was just about rotted out. Today you can't tell there was a stump there. I have several stumps at my new house where the trees were cut off at ground level.

    The reason trees are cut off at ground level and not below is that chain saws blades dull about 30 seconds after they get dirt on them. Ask me how I know that. And it was my girlfriend's chainsaw. Oops!

  • timtsb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks for all the replies. I am still going to dig because the grass is worthless there anyway...and I already purchased a lot of good top soil, I'm hoping it's just sawdust and wood chips.

    Unfortunately if the stump wasn't grinded properly I can't really complain because the guy who did it is a friend of my father-in-law...not worth the drama. And the whole 18 month rotting process isn't really an option. Too many unsightly/unsafe holes in my yard. I guess if there are any stumps left down there I'll have to hack at them with an axe and a variety of power tools (and pray I don't dull them out right away). It sucks this next week is going to be one of the hottest of the summer up here...I thought September was supposed to bring relief from the heat?!

  • dhd47
    9 years ago

    Greetings,

    I have a similar issue in my yard with old tree locations. I have 3 areas in the back where there were trees but now the lawn is grassed over and there are large holes in the location. This is the only reason I know there was trees there because the stumps are gone. I want to try and get the lawn level as I now have a son playing in the yard and I don't want to see him get hurt from the large indentations left.
    I was thinking of filling the area with sand and then topping with top soil/ potting soil. Then I was going to reseed the areas since we are coming un on fall. I wanted to know if this is a good idea or should I use something other than sand to fill.

    Thoughts?
    Thank you.
    DhD

  • beckyinrichmond
    9 years ago

    DHD: Topsoil would be best. Grass roots can grow several feet long and there would be better water retention in the soil for them with topsoil than sand.

    Timtsb: How is it going? What did you find?

  • dhd47
    9 years ago

    Thanks or the information. I will pick up some top soil soon and get my holes filled in.

    DhD

  • timtsb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Well I attacked my first tree stump today. The very first time I tried to get the shovel in the ground I immediately hit tree stump no more than 2" down. No wonder i couldn't keep the grass alive there. I uncovered the whole stump then went at it with a chainsaw and axe. 6 hours later, it's mostly removed.

    I was so physically exhausted I left some stump about 8-12" down. I'm probably going to regret that decision but I had had enough. I spread some Milorganite over it and filled with premium topsoil. I saw plenty of maggots so I assume that means the stump is already rotting down there. Saturday is a high of 90 so I'll seed on Sunday when temps drop to the upper 70s.

    The good news is this tree blew over in Hurricane Sandy before I owned the house, which is why the stump was there. I KNOW the guys I had cut the remaining trees down were grinding stumps so I'm going to assume they did their job properly and my grass problems were due to sawdust left in the holes. Instead of digging them out I now plan to scalp the exist grass with a weedwacker, level with topsoil (those spots are already sunken down a couple inches), and overseed....and make sure I apply extra milorganite in the future.

    Good plan?

  • beckyinrichmond
    9 years ago

    Oh, my! You are bound to be exhausted. Why didn't you call in a stump grinder to handle that stump? As for the other trees, if they removed the wood chips and filled in the holes with soil, you should be okay. If the wood chips are still there in chunky pieces, grass will struggle. Since there are sunken places, I'm going to guess the chips were not removed and have decayed since the trees were cut. Maybe they've decayed enough so that grass will grow. What do you find when you dig there? Dirt or wood chips?

  • morpheuspa (6B/7A, E. PA)
    9 years ago

    >>I was so physically exhausted I left some stump about 8-12" down. I'm probably going to regret that decision but I had had enough.

    Ow. You, not the stump. :-)

    There may be a bit of settling as the stump decays over the years. Just keep topdressing with 1/4" of topsoil at a time if it does, and eventually the stump will be gone. Really, I'm a fan of this kind of thing as it's minimally stressful on the human involved.

    >>Good plan?

    Works for me. Keep an eye on the areas and again, topdress 1/4" at a time if it sinks further.

  • timtsb
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    If I was a little smarter and a little less stubborn, I would've called someone, or at least rented a stump grinder, but I thought I could handle it. I woke up around 3am and could barely move. Feeling a little better now though.

    I'll dig a little in the other areas and see what I find. I'm not anticipating wood chips...I watched them grind some stumps and it looked like a whole lot of saw dust. I think they just didn't dig it out as well as they should have. I imagine most saw dust would be mostly gone by now.

    I topdressed these areas once, but they sank a lot faster than I could topdress without killing the grass. Now that it's fall, I'm just going to pile it on and let the new grass come in.