Since we experienced lovely weather this weekend, the man and I undertook the task of tree stump removal. We hadn’t really touched the beast since the end of January, when we took a chainsaw to it and cut off most of the top growth.
It was sore, sweaty work. The weed tree flanking the photinia came out easily after some digging and chopping. The man had started digging around it last week and I completed the job on Saturday.
The photinia presented an enormous challenge. Barely 30 minutes into the digging, we hit a hidden sprinkler line, which suspended our work. We made an emergency run to Home Depot for a repair kit and to buy new tools: another shovel and a 1.5lb hand axe. With most of the daylight gone, we resumed on Sunday and labored to excavate most of its rootball. We found many roots that had grown into the sidewalk and under the fence and concrete divider. We also encountered more hidden cables which was deeply entangled in the roots. About 3.5 hours of hard digging and hatcheting later, it was clear that the photinia stump was not coming out. A mass of roots held the stump suspended over the hole we dug around and underneath it, and those arterial roots grew horizontally behind the chain link fence into parts unknown. It had also deeply entangled another weed tree in its roots, right next to the fence.
Thoroughly exhausted, we wait on tomorrow to ultimately decide its fate: industrial chainsaw or professional stump removal.
Meanwhile, behold the come-again yellow pansy and white fringeflower (Emerald Snow loropetalum) blooms.
