Ignore the bad lawn, I’m working in the fall to make it healthier.
As the title says, just ground down a stump but the company left it like this.
Should u leave it like this to decay naturally or would it be better to spread it uniformly across my lawn? It’s about a 2-3” tall mound but I don’t want to rake it over whatever grass is there and kill the grass.
Thanks!
by BohemianJack
20 Comments
Many variables. Depends on the tree. Some trees decompose quickly. Some don’t.
This is more of a lawn care sub question.
Being a lawn fanatic none of this would be on my lawn. NONE. It would all be blown in a pile and moved off the lawn. I would then dig where the tree was and add some top soil. A good amount too. Many inches deep to grow seed.
This is great for your yard around bushes and trees. But not on your lawn.
You should remove it, rotting wood will grow fungus. When I grind stumps I include the cost of removing the material and bringing loam in to fill the hole.
That’s one of the cleanest grinding jobs I’ve seen. You’ll just have to keep filling with dirt as it settles.
I had a stump ground. There were a lot of big chunks as it was a big tree, and then was a large mound in my front yard.
Packed a lot of them into big paper bags, got rid of them, and leveled it up.
A few years go by, the remaining chucks must have decomposed. Now, I have a low place in the front yard.
Nobody tells you this. I just did.
If you leave it add some nitrogen since the bacteria breaking down the wood will deplete it
Rake it up, throw some soil and seed down, enjoy the lawn
Rake and bag as much as you can. I’ve had 4 large cottonwood trees cut and the stumps grinded down. I have a nice lush lawn now.
If you don’t compost, it might be nice to post those woodchips on nextdoor, craigslist, facebook, buynothing, wherever you feel like. Composters love chips. Ash is only good in moderation, but adds potassium.
It’s really not gonna add any nutrients to your soil because it’s not composted properly. It’s going to create a little heat island and basically nothing will grow there at all aside from the occasional weed. It’s best you rake it all up and take it somewhere else, or rake it and barrel it and turn it to charcoal. And you can mix your charcoal later into a top soil to dispose of it.
Rake what you can up and work to fix what remains
New wood chips take nitrogen from the soil. But old wood chips, as they decay, the chips release that nitrogen back into the soil. Since you aren’t planning to mix these chips into your soil, they cannot take nitrogen out of the soil, and thus they will not cause harm to your grass.
I would leave it where it is and let it break down. As it decays it will improve your soil. It is effectively free hardwood mulch. It will help with water retention and weed suppression in that bare spot, which will make it easier for grass to root and grow there.
The only harm the disease could cause would be if you planned to plant a new ash there. Since that’s not your plan, you don’t need to worry.
Get rid of it all and bring in some topsoil to grade off. Use the grinding in some out of the way place if you have such a place.
Meh leave it. Where it is. Cover in good fill and put some sod down.
The r/lawncare advice would be to rake the wood chips evenly throughout the lawn, add in good topsoil and mound it up 1”-2” where the stump used to be, and then seed over it. As the roots decompose, it’ll sink back to level.
My first experience with this, I left a fair bit of the shredded wood in the hole. It still took about 1/3 yard of soil to fill and level everything before planting grass seed. Looked great for about 2 years. Then it started to settle. The next 10 or so years, I added about 3 cubic feet of soil per year to the settled low spot, raked it out, reseeded. Finally, finally, it stopped settling.
Don’t do that.
Rake/dig out as much of the wood chips as you can now and replace with soil. There will probably still be some settling as deeper roots rot away, but it won’t be nearly so drastic or such a long process.
I’ll tell you grass won’t grow in the wood dust
Iuse that as mulch on flower beds if you have them
I’m curious how big was the stump diameter wise like
It is basically free mulch, and being fresh, it will leach nutrients into the ground as it breaks down. New chips can be very nitrogen rich and may inhibit fresh grass, but that is not a large amount, so you should be fine to do whatever with it.
It’s ok if it’s at grade or slightly above after stump grinding . The grindings will settle. I generally tell people to give it a month with precip and weathering. Remove excess grindings if needed. You could also water the area to accelerate the process. Put 3” top soil and put grass seed or sod down.
Overall, it looks like a big mess but I bet they were chasing after a bunch of surface roots.
Be patient and things will work out
On a side note, some companies will leave the grindings behind – generally cheaper since they don’t have to haul off. You can use the grindings as mulch in other areas though