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Old tree stumps can take up valuable space, make mowing difficult and get in the way of new landscaping. Tree Masters Hertfordshire provides stump grinding throughout Hertfordshire.

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Stump Grinding Services

Grinding unwanted tree stumps
Reducing stumps below ground level
Stump removal before turfing
Stump removal before landscaping
Multiple stump grinding
Stump work following tree removal

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All of Hertfordshire covered

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A stump grinder cutting into a tree stump

A Tree Masters stump grinder working through a large stump

The cutting wheel of a stump grinder in the grindings

What Stump Grinding Actually Does

A stump grinder is a machine with a rotating cutting wheel that works across the stump, taking it down in passes and turning wood into chippings. It reduces the stump below ground level rather than pulling it out, which is what makes it usable in an established garden.

The alternative — digging or winching a stump out whole — means excavating the root plate, which in most gardens does far more damage to lawns, paths, borders and drains than the stump was ever causing.

How Deep, and Why It Depends

The usual working depth is enough to get below the surface for turfing or planting. Where something more substantial is going on top — a shed base, a patio, a fence line — it needs grinding deeper, and that is worth saying at the quoting stage because it changes the job.

What limits depth in practice is rarely the machine. It is what else is in the ground.

Buried services are the real constraint. Electricity, gas, water, drainage and telecoms runs are often shallower than people assume, and a grinding wheel does not distinguish between a root and a cable. Anything you know about — where the supply enters, where a soakaway sits, where an old run was put in — is worth mentioning before the machine starts.

What You Can Do With the Ground Afterwards

Turf it. The commonest next step. The hole is backfilled with soil rather than left as grindings, because chippings settle and rob nitrogen as they rot
Plant into it. Possible, though a new tree or shrub does better in fresh soil than in a bed of decaying wood. Say if you are planning to replant, because it changes how the hole is finished
Pave or build over it. Needs a deeper grind and a proper excavation, and it is worth involving whoever is doing the groundwork
Leave it. Perfectly reasonable where the area is not being used

The grindings

A ground stump produces a surprising volume of chippings and soil — considerably more than the stump appeared to be, because the material expands as it is cut. It can be taken away, used to backfill the hole, or spread on borders, and it is worth deciding which before the day.

Access Is the Other Variable

Stump grinders come in a range of sizes, and the size that fits through the gate is not always the size that makes short work of the stump. A back garden reached through a narrow side passage, a gate that has to come off, or a step up to a lawn all affect which machine can be used and how long the job takes.

Photographs of the stump and the route to it are the single most useful thing you can send with an enquiry, along with a rough diameter measured across the cut face.

Regrowth and Suckering

Grinding removes the stump but not every root. Some species — poplar, willow, cherry, lilac and sumach among them — will send up suckers from the remaining root system afterwards. That is normal, it is not a failure of the grinding, and it is dealt with by cutting or treating the suckers as they appear. Worth knowing in advance for those species.