I just had a 50 year-old Maple tree taken out, since it was too close to my house and much too large for my tiny city garden. Now I have a stump, about three foot in diameter. I like the stump, but I want to make sure that the roots cease growing as soon as possible. How do I do this? It is still much too green to imagine drilling into it, and herbicides are probably out of the question, since I have plants next to the stump.

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Ron

I think you have a very short amount of time after cutting down a tree in which to paint the cut surface with neat glyphosate. (Active constituent in roundup) Like a few minutes or so. If the tree continues to shoot i'd use a battery drill to drill holes at an angle into the cambium layer, the growing layer under the bark, and inject straight glyphosate into the holes. Then plug them with a bit of wood or whatever. Drill the holes so they run under the bark not straight into the wood. It won't hurt the surrounding plants. I bet the stump is a beauty. It'll make a nice feature.

Thanks for the pointer to vine-x; it seems to be the least harmful of the herbicides that I have heard about. I have just written to the company, asking whether they believe it will work now, a week after the tree was cut down.

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Ron