Lots of stumps in garden

chrissac

So - not sure if I've been had but I hired a tree surgeon (door knocker but seem to have correct qualifications) to remove 7 x 15ft conifer trees and 5 other 10ft trees / shrubs and some giant rhubarb in a garden area we wanted clearing. Cost us £400 which I thought was fairly reasonable as there was a lot of garden waste clearance which would have required at least one skip worth.

Left them to it - after only a few hours they had finished and said they had poisoned the stumps but I investigated the stumps carefully and could see no evidence of such poisoning (no smell / grooves or holes in stumps). When I asked what poison they have applied they said the petrol that comes out of the chainsaw is enough which I suspect is a load of codswallop and argued that is just not enough but three burly guys wanting their money and adamant that they'd completed the job, in the end they agreed to cut in some grooves to the stumps for me to apply "more poison if I wish" which sufficed for me.

So now I have an area I want to patio over with a load of giant rhubarb stumps and 5 medium shrub stumps, should I simply spend a few evening to dig these out? And then I have 7 conifer stumps coming out of a small wall all pre grooved, should I simply look to poison these?

Any advice would be helped!

I_have_spoken

Best bet is use a stump grinder, most proper tree surgeons have them.