attacking trees - help!!

katiepoppycat

My garden is an absolute wreck - according to my neighbours who have lived here since the houses were built, no-one has really cared about it in 50 years. I've made a start but the big job this summer is to get new fencing installed. The trouble is, there is a big mulberry tree in the way as well as some other trees/bushes. I've made a start by cutting the bush-type ones down to ground level but I'm stumped as to the next step. Do I excavate down and try and find the roots and dig the lot up? Or someone mentioned something to me about cutting them right down and injecting something in to them? And what on earth do I do about the tree?! I'm trying as hard as i can to do as much myself to bring the bill down but it's hard as I don't really know what I'm doing. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Lusignan

If you want the mulberry out, speak to the Council - they'll be able to provide a tree surgeon to take it down for you at a cost. I wouldn't tackle that one yourself.

amyandoli

Hello,

I know people who hammer copper nails into the exposed tree ends and it kills it off somehow. We had a very overgrown garden in this house, and have just today finished 'the clearing' of the far back corner. We had a truly massive conifer which was as tall as the house and brown, which we obviously cut down, first to about 5ft, then as near to the soil as possible. We were left with several close stumps, about 50cm in diameter. We then built a circular wall 1m diameter around the stump, 7 courses high, filled it with rich compost and it's now my herb bed. Saved us digging up roots, and looks like a feature we planned, not just dumped in. Another massively overgrown bush was close to it, so again we've cut it as close to the soil as possible, it's smack on the edge of my veg patch, so I'm going to grow some constrained groundcover over/around it, and wedge a few bulbs in it's immeadiate root system to pretty it up a bit.

My parents had a healthy tree that needed cutting down to allow light into the house, so got a tree surgen who chipped it for them on site- cost £150, took 2 days, they kept the bark chips for the flower beds. I think healthy trees are harder to cut up- ours were dead- they crunched rather than snapped off, and were full of insects.

Also- really not nice I know, but when we dug up one of the overgrown bushes, we found the skeletal remains of the last owners dog. The next door neighbour came out when she heard me screaming, and said she wondered if we'd find him! - can you ask your neighbours if they now of any burial sites in your garden-just in case-especially if they are more recent?

Amy

benood

There's no way I would cut down a mulberry tree especially a big one - sacrilege. The fruit is just the best and really hard to find.

katiepoppycat

benood, i think it's a mulberry but i just don't know. It's really my neighbours tree but it blocks all the light in my garden and srops things from growing. Plus, he's getting too old to keep it maintained. AMi, the plan to have it chipped sounds like a good one. And i never thought about burials . . . eeew! thanks very much.

benood

Ah well, you'll know if it's a mulberry in the summer, yum yum!!

Lord_Gardener

katiepoppycat wrote: »

benood, i think it's a mulberry but i just don't know. It's really my neighbours tree but it blocks all the light in my garden and srops things from growing. Plus, he's getting too old to keep it maintained. AMi, the plan to have it chipped sounds like a good one. And i never thought about burials . . . eeew! thanks very much.

Is your neighbour happy to have his tree cut down? I'd get it in writing - just in case! Re your 'bush type ones' See what comes back, you may have some nice shrubs there! Nb They should interfere with your new fencing unless they are on it's line!