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Two ways to get rid of a stump. They produce quite different results and cost quite different amounts, and which is right depends entirely on what happens in that spot next.
Grinding
A wheel of tungsten teeth reduces the stump in place to chippings. The surrounding ground is barely touched.
- Quick. Most garden stumps are an hour or two
- Cheap, relatively. One machine, one or two people
- Minimal disruption. The lawn and the borders around it survive
- Works in tight spaces, with a narrow-access machine
- Leaves the root system in the ground to decay naturally
- Leaves a volume of wood chippings that has to be dealt with
Digging Out
Excavating the stump and the main roots, usually with a mini digger, occasionally by hand where a machine cannot reach.
- Complete. The stump and the major roots come out
- Leaves clean ground that can be built on or replanted properly
- Considerably more expensive. Plant hire, more time, and the material has to be carted away
- Very disruptive. A large hole, heavy machinery tracking across the garden, and everything within reach of the excavation disturbed
- Needs real access. A mini digger does not go through a standard side gate
- Leaves a hole that has to be backfilled and compacted, and that backfill is another cost
Which to Choose
Grinding is right for
- Lawn — by a distance the most common case, and grinding handles it completely
- Ordinary garden borders and planting
- Simply getting rid of a stump that is in the way or looks untidy
- Any stump in a garden with restricted access
- Several stumps at once, where the economics strongly favour grinding
Digging out is right for
- Anything being built on — an extension, a patio, a shed base, a driveway
- Planting a replacement tree in the same position
- Where honey fungus has been diagnosed and infected material genuinely needs to leave the site
- Where the roots themselves are causing a problem with paving or a wall
The most common mistake is paying for excavation for a lawn. Grinding to 25 centimetres with clean topsoil over it grows grass perfectly well. Digging out for that purpose is several times the price for no practical benefit, and it churns the garden in the process.
The Third Option Nobody Mentions
Leaving it. A stump in a part of the garden nobody uses is not a problem in itself, and it is genuinely good habitat — deadwood in the ground supports a great deal. If it is not in the way and you are not planning anything there, the honest advice is that it does not need to come out.
The exceptions are stumps close to a building, stumps in the middle of a lawn where they will be hit by a mower, and stumps of species that sucker heavily — poplar, lime and cherry in particular — which will keep sending up shoots for years.
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Tell us what the ground is being used for afterwards. That single answer decides which of these two is right, and we will say which.
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