Reverse Gardening :(
 

Gotta remove a ~30ft maple tree today. Carpenter ants have taken it over. And it's half hanging in my neighbors yard. He's worried that a branch will break off an fall on his granddaughter while she's out playing. (I'd be laughing if it didn't actually happen in my state in the last year... neglected city tree had a branch fall and kill a like 8yo girl).

Anyway, it's surrounded by a garden. We might just put some bushes around the stump (not paying another $250 to have it grinded). Or, i can turn that into my veggie garden... even though my wife JUST planted all her new flowers in the last few months

She also has a good number of pictures in her photobucket account of the house, so i can just raid it for pix of things i'm looking for.
Base of the tree and the surrounding garden
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...e/IMG_8020.jpg

What about planting a new tree next to it come spring?

Will have to see. Gotta see how eaten up the stump already will be. Those are thick roots, might be hard to get something else growing there. Or... it might not be.

You can rent a stump grinder yourself for not too much. Or dig out around the roots and chop them with an axe to pull the stump. I have done both on fairly large trees with good result.

But then, you can also sort of scuplt your garden around a nice stump-seat or plant holder type thing. Many options, I guess, :)

um.. i'll post pix later... there is NO stump to grind. damn thing was hallowed out, no joke. dunno how the tree was still standing.

addition: ha, my wife + technology = awesome. I went home at lunch to see how things with the tree were going and to pay the guy. (I work 5 miles from home). I took a quick pic on my iphone, emailed it to my wife to see, she u/led it on photobucket to show other people, so.. here it is, lol
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...niye/photo.jpg

I still gotta take a pic of the 'stump'.

:eek: Wow! Good thing you took that out now.

That is amazing.

here's the pix of the 'stump' i promised

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...e/IMG_0247.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...e/IMG_0245.jpg

Wanna try something fun?

Use the hollow stump as a "planter"!

Put some nice flowers in it like a pot!

With how rotted out it is, I wonder if you could even plant a sapling right in there!

That would be very phoenix-like!

we're kinda planning that. filling it with dirt and planting a bush there.